KEY FINDINGS

• Beneficial Insects vs. Pests
  • Beneficial insects like bees and other pollinators suffer more from air pollution than crop-destroying pests.
  • Pollinators experienced a 39% decline in foraging efficiency due to elevated air pollution levels.
  • Plant-eating pests like aphids were not significantly impacted.

REASONS FOR DISPROPORTIONATE HARM

• Scent-Based Communication
  • Beneficial insects rely heavily on airborne chemical signals for locating flowers, mates, and prey.
  • Air pollutants can alter or mask these scent trails, disrupting the insects’ sensory landscape.
  • Pests rely more on direct contact or visual cues, making them less affected by air pollution.

STUDY DETAILS

• Scope and Data
  • Analysis of data from 120 scientific papers.
  • Study covered 40 types of insects in 19 countries.
  • Examined pollutants: ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter.

BEHAVIORAL AND BIOLOGICAL IMPACTS

• Impacted Behaviors
  • Feeding, growth, survival, reproduction, and ability to locate food sources.
  • Most severe impact was on insects’ ability to find food, with an average decline of one-third.

SPECIFIC POLLUTANTS

• Ozone
  • Most harmful pollutant to beneficial insects, reducing their ability to thrive by 35%.
  • Even low levels of ozone, below current air quality standards, can cause significant damage.
• Nitrogen Oxides
  • Also substantially impaired beneficial insects.

IMPLICATIONS AND PREDICTIONS

• Global Impact
  • Even low pollution levels can damage insect populations and their ecological services.
  • Predicted increases in tropospheric ozone could have unintended consequences for global invertebrate populations.