This is about that much publicized insect collapse in Puerto Rico, which the authors blamed on climate change. It turns out that they made a natural but rather big mistake, not correcting for the effects of Hurricane Hugo, which increased the numbers of birds and insects before one of their main data points.
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The scientific process is an iterative and collaborative journey. Research is published, others can weigh in on results, and hypotheses can be corroborated, refuted, or further refined and tested. Though it may seem like second guessing or perhaps become contentious in some cases, this often overlooked aspect of the scientific method makes science better by continuing to challenge scientific assertions, thereby expanding and deepening our understanding.
An example of this process has been published today in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a collaboration between researchers from Louisiana State University, the University of Puerto Rico, and UConn. This new paper is a follow-up to an earlier response published in the same journal in 2018 that told of a collapsing food web and insect declines that were taking place in Puerto Rico, specifically as a result of global warming.