Rethinking the Connections between Ecosystem Services, Pollinators, Pollution, and Health: Focus on Air Pollution and Its Impacts

Abstract

Ecosystems provide many services that are essential for human activities and for our well-being. Many regulation services are interconnected and are fundamental in mitigating and hindering the negative effects of several phenomena such as pollution. Pollution, in particular airborne particulate matter (PM), represents an important risk to human health. This perspective aims at providing a current framework that relates ecosystem services, regulating services, pollination, and human health, with particular regards to pollution and its impacts. A quantitative literature analysis on the topic has been adopted. The health repercussions of problems related to ecosystem services, with a focus on the effects of atmospheric particulate matter, have been highlighted in the work throughout a case study. In polluted environments, pollinators are severely exposed to airborne PM, which adheres to the insect body hairs and can be ingested through contaminated food resources, i.e., pollen and honey. This poses a serious risk for the health of pollinators with consequences on the pollination service and, ultimately, for human health.

Flow cytometric analysis of hepatopancreatic cells from Armadillidium vulgare highlights terrestrial isopods as efficient environmental bioindicators in ex vivo settings

“…The appropriately disaggregated cells were rapidly, efficiently and quantitatively analysed by multicolour FC (Auguste et al 2020 ; Barmo et al 2013 ; Canesi et al 2008 ; Ciacci et al 2011 ; Souza et al 2023 ). This methodology that can be successfully applied to analyse hepatopancreatic cells from terrestrial isopods in order to conduct a so-called environmental diagnosis from a cytologic/histologic point of view, aimed to protect environmental welfare and human health (Abelouah et al 2023 ; da Silva Souza et al 2020 ; Plutino et al 2022 ; Vieira et al 2021 ). The current framework is partially derived from a previous work on an artificial pollution model (Manti et al 2013 ), i.e.…”

The use of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) to monitor airborne particulate matter and assess health effects on pollinators

“…If the particle is small and irregular in shape, the condition of constant electron/interaction volume is not met, the ZAF correction cannot be properly applied and the Fig. 4 When the morphology comes to help (A) halite (Negri et al 2015), (B) calcite (Plutino et al 2022) , (C, D) anthropogenic spherical particles (Negri et al 2015), (E) crystals of calcium oxalate (Pellecchia and Negri 2018), and (F) a crystal of magnesium phosphate conversion of intensities into concentrations yields inaccurate results, making their interpretation more complicated. In-depth knowledge of the area of investigation (e.g., geological settings and presence and localization of PM emission sources) will definitely help the interpretation.…”

Restoring Coal Mining-Affected Areas: The Missing Ecosystem Services

“…Following a similar trend from very different perspectives, Zhang et al [ 30 ] analysed quantitatively the spatial relationship between landscape patterns and habitat quality. Zhou et al [ 31 ] explored the relationship between recreational services and tourists’ well-being, while Plutino et al [ 32 ] provided a framework for ecosystem services, regulating services, pollination and human health. Istanbuly et al [ 33 ] addressed the relationship between socioeconomic variables and soil erosion in Polish catchments, while Cao et al [ 34 ] evaluated the interaction between poverty reduction and ecosystem services in poverty counties, something essential to promote rural revitalisation strategy and the construction of an ecological civilisation.…”