This $200,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology will fund research at Stanford University to analyze sediment DNA from lake cores in California in order to reconstruct over 1,200 years of insect diversity change. The researchers will employ sedimentary DNA techniques and high-throughput sequencing to characterize insect diversity over time. They will also assemble data on land use change, climate change, and pesticide applications to link human impacts with insect populations. This work aims to advance biodiversity conservation by improving understanding of insect declines and distinguishing natural changes from human-caused impacts over the last century. The grant is part of the NSF's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), which supports basic biological research to strengthen the nation's scientific enterprise and increase knowledge of major problems.