Insect Responses to Environmental Stressors

A special issue of Toxics (ISSN 2305-6304). This special issue belongs to the section "Ecotoxicology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 53

Special Issue Editors

College of Horticulture and Plant Protection, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010019, China
Interests: insect adaptability to extreme environments; insecticide resistance; cytochrome P450; cold hardiness; heat shock proteins; chemicals

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Guest Editor
College of Horticulture and Plant Protection, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010019, China
Interests: pesticide; nano delivery formulation; nematode; plant induced resistance

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Insects are increasingly exposed to a diverse array of environmental stressors, ranging from agricultural pesticides and heavy metals to industrial pollutants and climate-induced extremes. This Special Issue, "Insect Responses to Environmental Stressors," aims to comprehensively explore how insects perceive, tolerate and adapt to these multifaceted toxicological challenges.

Our scope encompasses several critical dimensions of research. Specifically, we focus on ecotoxicology (assessing ecological risks, bioaccumulation and population-level impacts of contaminants), drug toxicity (evaluating the efficacy, physiological resistance mechanisms and non-target effects of xenobiotics) and neurotoxicity (investigating how environmental stressors disrupt the insect nervous system, thereby altering vital behaviors such as foraging, navigation and reproduction).

While the existing literature often treats individual stressors or specific biochemical pathways in isolation, this Special Issue is situated at the forefront of comprehensive toxicological assessment, the intersection of behavioral, physiological and ecological responses. By bridging these disciplines, we seek to build a holistic, multi-level framework of insect vulnerability and resilience in a changing environment. We warmly invite original research articles and comprehensive reviews that shed light on these diverse toxicological interactions.

  1. Ecotoxicological Assessments: Evaluating the environmental fate, bioaccumulation and population-level ecological risks of contaminants in insects.
  2. Toxicity Evaluations: Investigating the lethal and sublethal toxicity, toxicokinetics and non-target effects of agrochemicals and xenobiotics.
  3. Neurotoxicology: Assessing how environmental toxicants impair the insect nervous system and drive severe neurobehavioral deficits (e.g., foraging, navigation and reproduction).
  4. Mixture Toxicity: Exploring the interactive toxicological effects of combined environmental pollutants on insect survival.
  5. Environmental Hazard Evaluation: Bridging controlled laboratory toxicity testing with complex field-level ecological risk frameworks.

Dr. Yao Tan
Dr. Jiale Yang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 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

  • insect response
  • environmental stressors
  • insect adaptability
  • insecticide resistance
  • cold hardiness
  • chemicals
  • pesticides
  • ecotoxicology
  • drugs toxicity
  • neurotoxicity
  • RNAi
  • RNA-based biological pesticides

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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