Insect responses to interacting global change drivers in managed ecosystems

• Global change affects insects via correlated, simultaneously acting drivers.
• Recent studies study responses of insects to two, three or more interacting global change drivers.
• However, both new experiments and new statistical analysis tools are needed to understand insect responses to multiple drivers.
• Network thinking may help to link drivers, insect multi-trophic network structure, and insect-mediated ecosystem functioning.

Insects are facing an increasingly stressful combination of global change drivers such as habitat fragmentation, agricultural intensification, pollution, or climatic changes. While single-factor studies have yielded considerable insights, multi-factor manipulations have gained momentum recently. Nevertheless, most work to date has remained within particular domains of research, such as ‘habitat destruction’ or ‘climate change’, and linkages among subdisciplines within the ecological literature have remained scarce. Here, I provide an overview of the most recent developments in the field, with a focus on main functional groups of insects, but also their interactions with other organisms. All major global change drivers (landscape modification, climate change, agricultural management) are covered both singly and in interaction. The manuscript concludes with concepts on how to statistically and conceptually deal with interactions in experimental and observational work.