Insects as bioindicator: A hidden gem for environmental monitoring

Abstract

Environmental contamination research has been quite interesting in bioindicators recently. The basic objective of bioindicator research is to find species that can reliably detect environmental disturbances and demonstrate how those disturbances affect other species or biodiversity as a whole. Since they frequently come into contact with the harmful substances found in soil, water, and air, insects are particularly valuable for evaluating how human activities affect the terrestrial ecosystem, the aquatic system, and the atmosphere. In this review article, we’ve emphasized the use of insects as a resource for assessing contaminants and monitoring environmental contamination. Insects have been our main focus since they are key indicators of changes in soil, water, and air quality. The majority of insects, including beetles, ants, honey bees, and butterflies are employed in this study as biological indicators since they are sensitive to even the slightest environmental changes and are also used to monitor different environmental toxins.

Konservasi Kupu-Kupu Penting Sebagai Penyerbuk di Kampung Wisata Isyo Hills Rhepang Muaif Nimbokrang, Kabupaten Jayapura

“…Serangga merupakan salah satu elemen penting dalam ekosistem dan memiliki jumlah spesies dan indivdu terbesar dalam dunia hewan yaitu lebih kurang 900.000 spesies. Banyak serangga merespon dengan cepat dan dramatis terhadap perubahan kondisi lingkungan, hal ini membuat serangga berpotensi sebagai indikator 2 berguna bagi kondisi habitat (Chung et al, 2000;Chowdhury et al, 2023).…”

Flow cytometric analysis of hepatopancreatic cells from Armadillidium vulgare highlights terrestrial Isopods as efficient environmental bioindicators in ex vivo settings

“…An indicator is considered an organism or biological system used to assess a change, generally degenerative, in the quality of the environment, whatever its level of organisation and use (Chowdhury et al, 2023).…”

“…Generally, a bio-indicator is an organism or a biological system capable of providing information on one/more ecological phenomena in a given environment based on its presence/absence, abundance, or changes in its biological, morphological and ecological status. Thus, they are organisms that can be used for the recognition and qualitative-quantitative determination of environmental factors of anthropogenic origin (Chowdhury et al, 2023;Markert, 2007).…”

“…In addition, the characteristics of a good indicator include providing early warning of change (Chowdhury et al, 2023). The use of bioindicators plays a signi cant role in numerous elds: environmental quality assessment, climate and land-use change surveys, analysis of the degree of anthropisation of a site, biodiversity analysis, land-use management, and planning; environmental conservation and restoration (information on the loss, rarefaction and disappearance of certain environments); ecological networks and corridors, etc.…”

“…Every level of biological organisation can be used as a bioindicator: communities, species, organisms, organs, tissues and nally, cells. Indeed, bioindicators are frequently used as markers for biological parameters (Chowdhury et al, 2023).…”