Despite the ecological significance of insects in terrestrial ecosystems, data on their past and current distributions is scarcely available and geographically biased. Recent studies, for example, highlighted the long-term decline of insect diversity at a “global” scale, but their data was geographically biased towards Europe and North America. The lack of documented information in other regions hinders us from assessing the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances that operate at various spatial and temporal scales. Here, I present our efforts to fill such crucial information gaps by documenting taxonomic and functional diversities of ants, moths, beetles and hymenopterans along elevational gradients in southern China. I also present our manipulative field experiments in this region as part of a collaborative, global effort to understand: (1) the roles of insects in predation and trophic cascading, and (2) community assembly processes in the forest canopy and understory. The use of manipulative field experiments, in addition to field surveys, provide powerful tools to better identify underlying mechanisms that drive community assembly under anthropogenic pressures. Basic sciences that document the taxonomy, biogeography and ecological functions of insects in this region are of the utmost importance to global conservation and management efforts aiming to mitigate anthropogenic disturbances.