Insect-inspired architecture to build sustainable cities

The oral repellent - science fiction or common sense? Insects, vector-borne diseases, failing strategies, and a bold proposition

Over the last decades, unimaginable amounts of money have gone into research and development of vector control measures, repellents, treatment, and vaccines for vector borne diseases. Technological progress and scientific breakthroughs allowed for ever more sophisticated and futuristic strategies. Yet, each year, millions of people still die or suffer from potentially serious consequences of malaria or dengue to more recent infections, such as zika or chikungunya, or of debilitating consequences of neglected tropical diseases. This does not seem value for money. In addition, all current vector control strategies and personal protection methods have shortcomings, some serious, that are either destructive to non-target species or unsatisfactory in their effectiveness. On the other hand, the rapid decline in insect populations and their predators reflects decades-long aggressive and indiscriminate vector control. This major disruption of biodiversity has an impact on human life not anticipated by the well-meaning killing of invertebrates. The objective of this paper is to re-examine current control methods, their effectiveness, their impact on biodiversity, human and animal health, and to call for scientific courage in the pursuit of fresh ideas. This paper brings together topics that are usually presented in isolation, thereby missing important links that offer potential solutions to long-standing problems in global health. First, it serves as a reminder of the importance of insects to human life and discusses the few that play a role in transmitting disease. Next, it examines critically the many currently employed vector control strategies and personal protection methods. Finally, based on new insights into insect chemo-sensation and attractants, this perspective makes a case for revisiting a previously abandoned idea, the oral repellent, and its use via currently successful methods of mass-application. The call is out for focused research to provide a powerful tool for public health, tropical medicine, and travel medicine.

Insect Cultural Services: How Insects Have Changed Our Lives and How Can We Do Better for Them

Simple Summary

Insects—as many other organisms—provide services for our societies, which are essential for our sustainable future. A classic example of an insect service is pollination, without which food production collapses. To date, though, there has often been a generalised misconception about the benefits of insects to our societies, and misunderstandings on how insects have revolutionised our cultures and thus our lives. This misunderstanding likely underpins the general avoidance, disregard for, or even deliberate attempts to exterminate insects from our daily lives. In this Perspective, we provide a different viewpoint, and highlight the key areas in which insects have changed our cultures, from culinary traditions to architecture to fashion and beyond. We then propose a general framework to help portray insects—and their benefits to our societies—under a positive light, and argue that this can help with long-term changes in people’s attitude towards insects. This change will in turn contribute to more appropriate conservation efforts aimed to protect insect biodiversity and the services it provides. Therefore, our ultimate goal in the paper is to raise awareness of the intricate and wonderful cultural relationships between people and insects that are fundamental to our long-term survival in our changing world.

Abstract

Societies have benefited directly and indirectly from ecosystem services provided by insects for centuries (e.g., pollination by bees and waste recycling by beetles). The relationship between people and insect ecosystem services has evolved and influenced how societies perceive and relate to nature and with each other, for example, by shaping cultural values (‘cultural ecosystem services’). Thus, better understanding the significance of insect cultural services can change societies’ motivations underpinning conservation efforts. To date, however, we still overlook the significance of many insect cultural services in shaping our societies, which in turn likely contributes to the generalised misconceptions and misrepresentations of insects in the media such as television and the internet. To address this gap, we have reviewed an identified list of insect cultural services that influence our societies on a daily basis, including cultural services related to art, recreation, and the development of traditional belief systems. This list allowed us to formulate a multi-level framework which aims to serve as a compass to guide societies to better appreciate and potentially change the perception of insect cultural services from individual to global levels. This framework can become an important tool for gaining public support for conservation interventions targeting insects and the services that they provide. More broadly, this framework highlights the importance of considering cultural ecosystems services—for which values can be difficult to quantify in traditional terms—in shaping the relationship between people and nature.

Insect architecture: structural diversity and behavioral principles

Insects build myriad structures out of diverse materials. These structures serve purposes that range from facilitating prey capture to housing their entire colony. Whereas some insects operate solitarily, others collectively build large and complex structures. The architecture of these structures vis-à-vis their ultimate function poses fascinating questions that require multidisciplinary investigations. Importantly, because the underlying design and architectural principles have evolved over millions of years to withstand multitude of environmental perturbations, they offer important lessons for human-made structures. The vast variety of insect-built structures reflects how diverse insects have adapted to resolve the ecological challenges in their specific habitats. Here, we survey insect-built structures from a comparative perspective to ask what design and architectural principles can be gleaned from them. We discuss the key hypotheses about building-behaviours, their neural underpinnings, the functional role of insect-built structures and their biomimetic potential.