Ecosystem Services and Biocontrol Potential of Social Insects
Summary
Social insects—including ants, bees, wasps and termites—are fundamental agents of ecosystem functioning across terrestrial landscapes. Through collective foraging and nesting behaviours they deliver a suite of services: pollination of wild flora and crops, predation of arthropod pests, decomposition of organic matter and soil engineering. In agricultural and urban settings, predatory wasps and ants regulate populations of caterpillars, aphids and dipteran vectors, reducing reliance on chemical pesticides. Similarly, social bees maintain crop yields by facilitating pollen transfer, while termites and saprophagous ants enhance nutrient cycling and soil structure. Beyond these regulatory and supporting services, social insects contribute to provisioning benefits—honey, wax and, in some cultures, edible brood—and underpin cultural values in art, symbolism and citizen science. The interplay of these services underpins resilient agroecosystems and healthy natural habitats, offering sustainable alternatives to synthetic inputs. Emerging research emphasises the need to integrate social-insect biocontrol into integrated pest management, to safeguard biodiversity and to bolster food security in the face of global environmental change.
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Ecosystem Services and Biocontrol Potential of Social Insects publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecosystem services and biocontrol potential of social insects across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Ecosystem services: The benefits that humans derive from natural ecosystems, including pollination, pest regulation and nutrient cycling.
Biocontrol: The deliberate use of living organisms to suppress populations of agricultural or public-health pests.
Social insects: Species that live in organised colonies with division of labour among overlapping generations of adults (for example ants, bees and wasps).
Regulatory services: Ecosystem functions that moderate natural processes, such as biological pest control and disease regulation.
Biopesticide: A pesticide derived from natural materials (plants, bacteria or minerals) intended to manage pest populations with reduced environmental impact.
References
- Ecosystem services provided by aculeate wasps. Biological Reviews (2021).
- Pest Control Potential of Social Wasps in Small Farms and Urban Gardens. Insects (2019).
- Ecotoxicity of bioinsecticides to social wasps. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health (2024).
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