Addressing global challenges with unconventional insect ecosystem services: Why should humanity care about insect larvae?

Abstract

Ecosystem services are essential for the health of current and future generations and key to the sustainable development of our societies. The role of insects in providing ecosystem services has been increasingly recognized, becoming the focus of several management and conservation initiatives world‐wide. However, ecosystem services framework traditionally overlooks the full range of services that can be provided by insects, largely because services provided by life stages other than the insect adult are often neglected. In this paper, I first review the traditional ecosystem services primarily attributed to insects, namely edible insects and mass‐rearing for biological control. Next, I provide a collection of unconventional ecosystem services provided by insect larvae which highlights the importance of considering life stage‐specific services in a holistic view of the ecosystem services framework. In particular, I discuss recent advances that revealed how insect larvae can degrade plastic, which is one of humanity's greatest environmental pollutants, and how larvae can be used to produce biofuel to help overcome the increasing contribution of the fossil fuel industry to climate change. I then discuss how toxic compounds produced by the larvae of some insects provide potential new medicines for clinical treatment and lastly, I discuss a unique example of how the larval stage of insects is entrenched into the cultural values of Aboriginal communities in Australia. In conclusion, by acknowledging life stage‐specific ecosystem services provided by insects, this paper raises awareness of unconventional services that can underpin innovative solutions to contemporary global challenges, which can ultimately help create more sustainable and culturally diverse societies.

Global insect decline is the result of wilful political failure: A battle plan for entomology

“…They also compose the bulk of the food sources for birds, reptiles, fishes and many other vertebrates (DeAngelis, 1992 ). Insects and other arthropods deliver numerous beneficial services in the functioning and the maintenance of our natural and anthropogenic habitats, which have been extensively documented by specific reviews (Morimoto, 2020 ; Ollerton, 2017 ; Prather & Laws, 2018 ; Reilly et al, 2020 ; Tscharntke et al, 2002 ).…”

“…For example: Mopane worms important in southern Africa, Chapalines in Mexico, palm grubs eaten across tropical regions of South America, not to forget the many diverse insects eaten across southeast Asia and China (Hurd et al, 2019 ; Kelemu et al, 2015 ; Raheem et al, 2019 ). The question remains why the Western world has neglected insects as food and feed for so long (Morimoto, 2020 ). Food preferences are the result of cultural conditioning (Harris & Ross, 2009 ).…”

Current conservation policies in the UK and Ireland overlook endangered insects and are taxonomically biased towards Lepidoptera

“…Such declines could jeopardise key functions in the ecosystem, with insects playing a role in pest control (Feener and Brown, 1997;Shaw and Hochberg, 2001), decomposition (Beynon et al, 2015;Seibold et al, 2021), carbon sequestration (Metcalfe et al, 2014;Orians et al, 2011), and pollination of flowering plants (Garibaldi et al, 2013;IPBES, 2016). This is in addition to the role of insects as a food source (Costa-Neto and Dunkel, 2016;Looy et al, 2014;Ramos Elorduy, 2005), numerous contributions to human culture (Duffus et al, 2021), and other unconventional ecosystem services (Morimoto, 2020). A reduction in these functions could have major impacts upon society, for instance by reducing food security, with 5-8% of the world's most nutritionally important crops dependent on animal pollination (Gallai et al, 2009;IPBES, 2016).…”

“…These current drivers, may result in declining insect populations, adversely affecting the functioning of ecosystems (van der Sluijs, 2020;Vanbergen, 2013). The roles filled by insects within the ecosystem are essential not only for ecosystem health, but also the sustainable development of our societies (Schowalter, 2013;Soliveres et al, 2016) provided that insects are responsible for the provisioning of unconventional services to society that span from plastic degradation through to cultural heritage (Bombelli et al, 2017;Duffus et al, 2021;Noriega et al, 2018) [see also (Morimoto, 2020) for a review]. These functions and services may be threatened by losses in insect biodiversity.…”

Larval densities of the protected Striped lychnis moth Shargacucullia lychnis (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Buckinghamshire

“…Natural history information is particularly absent for the insect larval stages in spite of larvae's key ecological and economic roles in our societies (Morimoto, 2020). The developmental environment experienced by the larvae plays a key role in shaping adult individual fitness and, consequently, population survival (Than, Ponton, & Morimoto, 2020).…”