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Abstract Understanding how insects may respond and adapt to global warming is a major challenge when predicting future biodiversity trends in glacial regions at high altitudes and latitudes of our planet. Hydrobiologists, ecologists, ecotoxicologists, molecular biologists, physiologists, and taxonomists are working together to understand the current changes in and foresee future scenarios of alpine insect populations and habitats. Thousands of specimens have been collected from remote areas to study the community structure, species phenology and distribution, and the response to environmental changes. Many of these species are at risk of extinction. In this essay, we raise some burning questions and concerns we would like to share with researchers operating in glacial habitats, in particular, and those working on insect conservation in disappearing habitats, in general: Must we collect many samples and kill many specimens to study spatiotemporal changes in community structure? What is the proportion of individuals captured relative to the actual population size of the species? What are the possible consequences of intensive sampling? Starting from our experience as ecologists, we appeal to the entomological audience to share our concerns and open a constructive scientific debate on cryophilous insect conservation.
Lencioni et al. (Thu,) studied this question.