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Natural World
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Last updated
July 26, 2025

Insects

Air pollution and insects studies reveal the often-overlooked impacts of environmental pollutants on critical ecosystem components, with implications for biodiversity and food security. Research shows that air pollution affects insect behaviour, reproduction, and survival rates, potentially disrupting pollination networks and ecosystem services essential for agriculture. These impacts on insect populations create cascading effects throughout food webs and agricultural systems. Explore the evidence documenting how air quality affects insect communities and what this means for ecosystem health and food production.
  • Plants smothered by pollutants were visited by up to 70% fewer insects overall, and their flowers received 90% fewer visits compared with those in unpolluted plots (Ryalls et al., 2024)
  • The black mustard plants used in the experiment, which can self-fertilise, exhibited a drop of 14% to 31% in successful pollination (Zimmer, 2024)
  • Gases such as ozone or nitrogen oxide will quickly react with these molecules and cause odour signals to vanish even faster than usual or even cause some compounds to vanish entirely (Zimmer, 2024)
  • At high ozone levels, fig wasps even avoided the plant odour (Zimmer, 2024)
  • Depending on the species, ozone can increase or decrease flower numbers, the quality and quantity of nectar or pollen, and influence the timing of flowering (Duque & Steffan‐Dewenter, 2024)
  • Air pollution causes a more than 30% reduction in pollinator performance(Ryalls et al., 2024)

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