Funding insect welfare research
May 6, 2022
Wild Animal Initiative is excited to be funding two insect welfare projects. This post explains the importance of insect welfare research and how we hope to contribute to the field.
We prioritize research that is relevant to improving the welfare of as many animals as possible, as much as possible — particularly when that research is neglected. We also balance our resource allocation between projects that deepen our understanding of known welfare challenges and projects that provide clarity in more uncertain but potentially high-impact areas. Wild insect welfare research has the potential to positively affect an incredibly large number of animals. But historically, most wildlife research has focused on mammals, birds, and other more charismatic fauna. As insects are often overlooked by both scientists and funders, it is especially important for us to support research that will provide valuable insight into their lives.
One of our key funding criteria is scope: how many animals could potentially benefit from the results of a research project, and by how much. There are probably between 1017 and 1019 individual wild insects alive at any time. While existing estimates of the total number of wild insects are not very precise, even the most conservative estimates are orders of magnitude larger than any class of vertebrates.
Of course, improving insect welfare is necessary only if insects have welfare at all. Because they are so different from humans, there is substantial uncertainty about whether insects are sentient or simply respond to stimuli without subjectively experiencing it. Insects are an incredibly diverse class with a wide range of anatomical, behavioral, and physiological characteristics, which makes generalizations about their sentience problematic. But all insects have a brain that processes and integrates sensory inputs and mediates behavioral outputs (Mizunami et al. 1999, Strausfeld 2009). Many insects display complex behaviors that involve reacting to and learning from their dynamic environments — behaviors which, in mammals, are considered evidence of sentience (Greenspan and van Swinderen 2004, Farris 2008). The neurology and behavior of certain insects, such as fruit flies, ants, honey bees, and cockroaches, have been studied extensively (for a summary of this research, see Waldhorn 2019). Though the goal of such research is not usually to determine whether these insects are sentient, it incidentally provides us some insight into their mental capacities. While far from conclusive, preliminary evidence suggests that many insects may have positive and negative experiences. Given how numerous insects are, better understanding how to potentially improve their lives could have far-reaching welfare benefits.
Most insect research focuses on insects as they relate to human and domestic animal health, agriculture, and conservation. This means that before we can answer big questions, like how a development plan, ecosystem restoration project, or agricultural practice will affect wild insects, we need to answer some very basic ones, like how many insects there are, how to measure reasonable proxies of their welfare like health and stress, and how much of an effect experiences like injury or migration are likely to have on their welfare.
We were fortunate to receive two strong proposals this year focused on establishing the fundamentals of insect welfare research. Dr. Jelle Boonekamp (University of Glasgow) and Professor Tom Tregenza (University of Exeter) are developing a frailty index that allows researchers to visually assess insect health. The index will be established in field crickets, using traits that are shared by many insect species so that the tool will be generalizable. Drs. Ruth Feber, Paul Johnson, and Sandra Baker of the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit are using a long-term dataset on butterfly and moth larvae to develop a QALY-like metric for estimating the effects of agricultural activity on insect welfare. Both projects address foundational questions that will support future research in a neglected and potentially very high-impact area of study, and we are privileged to have the opportunity to fund them.