Insects as bioindicator: A hidden gem for environmental monitoring

• Published in: Frontiers in environmental science 2023-03, Vol.11
• Main Authors: Chowdhury, Sanhita, Dubey, Vinod Kumar, Choudhury, Srishti, Das, Abhibandana, Jeengar, Deepika, Sujatha, B., Kumar, Anil, Kumar, Nagendra, Semwal, Anshuman, Kumar, Vinod
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air quality; Aquatic ecosystems; Aquatic environment; Atmosphere; Bees; Biodiversity; bioindicator; Bioindicators; Butterflies & moths; Carbon dioxide; Climate change; Contaminants; Contamination; Disturbances; Earth; Ecology; ecosystem; Ecosystems; Environmental changes; Environmental monitoring; environmental pollutants; Environmental science; Greenhouse gases; Heat; Indicator organisms; Indicator species; Insects; monitoring; Pollution monitoring; Precipitation; Sea level; Soil contamination; Soil water; Soils; Taxonomy; Temperature; Toxins; Trends
• ISSN: 2296-665X; 2296-665X
• DOI: 10.3389/fenvs.2023.1146052

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.