Last of the order collected by life partner leads to acute shortage (6)
I believe the answer is:
dearth
'to acute shortage' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'last of the order collected by life' is the wordplay.
'last of' says to take the final letters.
'collected by' is an insertion indicator.
'life' becomes 'death' (death is a kind of life).
The final letter of 'order' is 'r'.
'r' going inside 'death' is 'DEARTH'.
'partner leads' is the link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dearth that I've seen before include "Scarcity, paucity" , "Scarceness or lack" , "Shortage, paucity" , "Scarcity - famine" , "Acute insufficiency" .)