Insects in Environmental Engineering and Ecosystem Services

Abstract

Insects are the most abundant and diverse organisms on this earth. They are the environmental engineers, and the major service providers to our ecosystems. Insects provide us four major types of ecosystem services, i.e. provisioning services, regulating services, supporting services, and cultural services. By contributing towards the structure, fertility, and spatial dynamics of soil, insects maintain the biodiversity and food webs. They provide medical and industrial products, and are even consumed as food. In agroecosystems, insects perform functions, like pollination, nutrient and energy cycling, pest suppression, seed dispersal, and decomposition of organic matter, feces, and carrion. In terms of money, the ecosystem services provided by insects have an estimated value of US dollar 57 billion per year in the United States alone, and insect pollination may have an economic value of US dollar 235-577 billion per year worldwide. Despite their wide ecological significance, very little information is available on the functional roles that insects play and the ecosystem services they provide. The absence of detailed information is due to the lack of manipulative controlled experiments for several services provided by insects. Hence, there is an urgent need to address the different insect groups and the ecosystem services they provide so that their diversity may be conserved for our own survival. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.