RxPG News Feed for RxPG News

Medical Research Health Special Topics World
  Home
 
   Health
 Aging
 Asian Health
 Events
 Fitness
 Food & Nutrition
 Happiness
 Men's Health
 Mental Health
 Occupational Health
 Parenting
 Public Health
 Sleep Hygiene
 Women's Health
 
   Healthcare
 Africa
 Australia
 Canada Healthcare
 China Healthcare
 India Healthcare
 New Zealand
 South Africa
 UK
 USA
 World Healthcare
 
   Latest Research
 Aging
 Alternative Medicine
 Anaethesia
 Biochemistry
 Biotechnology
 Cancer
 Cardiology
 Clinical Trials
 Cytology
 Dental
 Dermatology
 Embryology
 Endocrinology
 ENT
 Environment
 Epidemiology
 Gastroenterology
 Genetics
 Gynaecology
 Haematology
 Immunology
 Infectious Diseases
 Medicine
 Metabolism
 Microbiology
 Musculoskeletal
 Nephrology
 Neurosciences
 Obstetrics
 Ophthalmology
 Orthopedics
 Paediatrics
 Pathology
 Pharmacology
 Physiology
 Physiotherapy
 Psychiatry
 Radiology
 Rheumatology
 Sports Medicine
 Surgery
 Toxicology
 Urology
 
   Medical News
 Awards & Prizes
 Epidemics
 Launch
 Opinion
 Professionals
 
   Special Topics
 Ethics
 Euthanasia
 Evolution
 Feature
 Odd Medical News
 Climate

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2012 - 10:22:56 PM
Odd Medical News Channel

subscribe to Odd Medical News newsletter
Special Topics : Odd Medical News

   EMAIL   |   PRINT
Value of services provided by insects is $57 billion in U.S.

Apr 3, 2006 - 7:10:00 AM , Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
The authors estimate the annual value of the ecological services that they considered to be at least $57 billion in the United States.

 
[RxPG] Although the economic importance of insects in providing honey and silk is well known, many other valuable services provided by insects are commonly overlooked. In the April 2006 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, John E. Losey of Cornell University and Mace Vaughan of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation estimate the value (as indicated by documented financial transactions) of some less well-known services provided by insects. Understanding such services is important because evidence points to a steady decline in beneficial insect populations.

The article's assessment is restricted to just four services--dung burial, control of crop pests, pollination, and wildlife nutrition--because data are not available to allow a more comprehensive assessment. Moreover, Losey and Vaughan excluded the value of services provided by domesticated insects, mass-reared biological control agents, and commercially raised insects. The authors estimate the annual value of the ecological services that they considered to be at least $57 billion in the United States.

Dung beetles, for example, reduce the effects of parasites and pests on cattle, enhance the palatability of forage to cattle, and make nitrogen in dung more readily available to plants. The authors estimate the value of natural control of crop pests attributable to insects at $4.5 billion annually. Native pollinators--almost exclusively bees--seem to be responsible for over $3 billion-worth of fruits and vegetables in the United States. And insects provide a critical nutritional resource that supports hunting, fishing, and observation of wildlife valued at $50 billion.

Losey and Vaughan stress that their assessment is conservative in that it includes only a fraction of the value of all the services insects provide. They suggest that their estimate implies that an annual investment of tens of billions of dollars would be justified to maintain service-providing insects, and urge that conservation funding pay specific attention to insects and the role they play in ecosystems.



Publication: April 2006 issue of BioScience
On the web: www.aibs.org 

Advertise in this space for $10 per month. Contact us today.


Related Odd Medical News News
Chinese woman cuts open her belly to save surgery cost
Two-year-old world's first to have extra DNA strand
172,155 kidney stones removed from one patient!
18 kg tumour removed from woman
VitaCig - Cigarettes with Vitamin C that don't stain teeth
A sneeze could give away your personality traits
Two-week-old embedded arrow surgically removed
Woman delivers baby on road in West Bengal
Restoring virtue for Rs.20,000!
Living with boyfriend? You could become obese

Subscribe to Odd Medical News Newsletter

Enter your email address:


 Additional information about the news article
BioScience publishes commentary and peer-reviewed articles covering a wide range of biological fields, with a focus on "Organisms from Molecules to the Environment." The journal has been published since 1964. AIBS is an umbrella organization for professional scientific societies and organizations that are involved with biology. It represents some 200 member societies and organizations with a combined membership of about 250,000.
 Feedback
For any corrections of factual information, to contact the editors or to send any medical news or health news press releases, use feedback form

Top of Page

 
Contact us

RxPG Online

Nerve

 

    Full Text RSS

© All rights reserved by RxPG Medical Solutions Private Limited (India)