## 5 Conclusions  
Long-term trends in grassland change were identified in areas where pronounced insect biomass decline had been observed [5]. The temporal trends indicate the value of long-term satellite image-based trend analysis by grouping grassland change types (e.g., continual grassland, intensifying grassland, arable/grassland mix) and highlighting individual areas (e.g., parcels) for a further detailed change analysis specific to study goals. Additional conclusions include:  
1. We successfully demonstrated the ability to appropriately combine (i.e., normalize) up to 200 images across 25 years to perform a long-term remote sensing analysis. 2. Our approach identified separable clusters of grassland parcels. 3. The identified clusters represented different groups of grassland parcels with constant or varying agronomic or management practices over time. These temporally expansive and spatially detailed trends of grassland change could be included as factors in multivariate investigations into insect decline. Insights from these improved techniques are also critical for the informed design of future land use and cultivation patterns in relation to insect ecology and in the broader context of biodiversity enhancement. 4. Changes in management practices coincided with regional trends in cultivation change as documented by official statistics [29]. A preliminary local detailed analysis using historical aerial imagery revealed improved understandings about grassland management and land use change patterns. Specifically, the analysis revealed mixed cultivation patterns including arable crops and grassland silage which coincided with the construction of a local biogas plant. A further detailed local analysis could be accompanied by aerial imagery investigation, field observation, and farmer interviews. 5. The methodology presented here can be applied to long-term studies in other geographic areas and temporal periods. 6. Grasslands and insects have a mutually beneficial relationship. Grasslands provide essential habitat and resources for insects, while insects play a vital role in maintaining the health and productivity of grassland ecosystems. The trend analysis presented herein provides informative approaches and important insights to analyze and document long-term changes of the quantitative and qualitative status of grassland ecosystem services. Such studies are decisive for an informed analysis of the insect decline phenomenon and other important environmental aspects related to (bio)diversity loss. Areas of future study could include the following to refine the process or to gain additional information: 1. The inclusion of additional factors such as rainfall and temperature in the normalization across time to remove the influence of \"out-of-the-ordinary\" factors that affect vegetation growth for that point in time. 2. Further investigation on the influence of applying several levels of averaging (i.e., parcel, annual, cluster) to the biomass estimations using NDVI. Exploration of the sensitivity to varying numbers and timing of satellite images used as input, including a more in-depth review of seasonal windows. 3. Development of imagery analysis workflows and quality assessment to enable easy-to-use grassland change analysis in other geographic areas (web-/server-based) as a module in multi-factor insect decline research.