The Impact of Insects on Various Ecosystem Services and Sustainable Environmental Practices
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2026 | Viewed by 105
Special Issue Editor
Interests: Apis mellifera; honeybee; pesticides; biotechnology; physiology; biochemistry; insect behavior
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue aims to bring together advances in knowledge regarding the impact of insects on environmental services. Changes in the environment motivate us to determine the importance of insects for the environment and to search for new methods of creating environments or spaces that are insect-friendly. In addition, changes to the study of ecosystem services and to sustainable environmental practices include the development of IT techniques and artificial intelligence to assess the role of insects in the environment. The factors affecting insects include various pesticides, a loss of habitat, a loss of biodiversity, etc. Another important factor influencing sustainable environmental practices is climate change, which has a significant impact on many insects by changing the vegetation period of plants, causing droughts, etc. Research is being undertaken on changes in insect physiology, behavior, and in the expression of selected insect genes in order to determine the degree of impact environmental change has on their bodies. In addition, practices that enable the safe presence of pollinators in the environment are often advisable. Sustainable environmental practices that support insects include constantly emerging new benefits, the sustainable use of plant protection products, post-harvest plant cultivation, and setting aside land for organic crops or strips of pollinator-friendly plants. All of these practices offer avenues to thoroughly investigate and determine the impact of insects on ecosystem services and sustainable environmental practice.
Ecosystem services and sustainable environmental practices constitute the various benefits that humans derive from the natural environment and their activities in it. Insects and their activities play key roles in these services and the interconnected living and non-living components of the natural environment offer benefits such as the pollination of crops and the decomposition of wastes. Ecosystem services are grouped into four broad categories of services: provisioning services, such as the production of food and water; regulating services, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting services, such as nutrient cycles and oxygen production; and cultural services, such as recreation, tourism, and spiritual gratification. In this Special Issue, I aim to focus on the provisioning, regulation, and supporting services; therefore, evaluations of ecosystem services may include assigning an economic value to them. Within this Special Issue, I encourage contributions of work on topics related to pollinators, insects that decompose dead matter, or those that support the functioning of ecosystem services and sustainable environmental practices. Papers on threats and challenges that insects face in their living environment are also welcome. More broadly, contributions may also be on crop pests and their natural enemies and methods of limiting the activity of unwanted insects in various environments.
I look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Paweł Migdał
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- insects
- ecosystem services
- sustainable environmental practices
- pollinators
- agriculture
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