D3378: GenARCC: Using genomic data from insect collections to understand impacts of climate change

Climate change is a major driver of insect declines, having implications for global food security, ecosystem function, and ecosystem resilience. Under the national Genomic Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change project (GenARCC) we will use genomic tools to understand past insect declines and predict the future climate change vulnerability of species and populations. We first leverage Canada’s national collections to identify a set of insect species that have declined or disappeared, and use whole genome shotgun sequencing uncover genomic signatures of those declines in the context of climate change. The data will be compared to common forest pest species (i.e. those that are well studied and regularly go through genetic bottlenecks) and used to link broad patterns of change in fauna to land use and climate variables. To further explore the impacts of climate change on pollinators specifically, we will assess changes in pollinator plant choice over time by metabarcoding pollen samples from flies and bees and comparing this to flowering plant phenology. We will also produce a cross-Canada baseline of insect genetic diversity using standardized Malaise trapping, with samples to be kept in perpetuity for long-term comparison to monitor changes in insect fauna.