Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore, 117543, Singapore.
Yale-NUS-College, 6 College Avenue East, Singapore, 138614, Singapore.
Sci Rep. 2018 Oct 23;8(1):15667. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34043-0.
The Southeast Asian transboundary haze contains a mixture of gases and particles from forest fires and negatively impacts people's health and local economies. However, the effect of the haze on organisms other than humans has not yet been sufficiently studied. Insects are important members of food webs and environmental disturbances that affect insects may impact whole ecosystems. Here we studied how haze directly and indirectly affects the survival, growth, and development of insects by rearing Bicyclus anynana butterflies under artificially generated smoke as well as reared in clean air but fed on plants previously exposed to smoke. Direct haze exposure significantly increased the mortality of caterpillars, increased larval development time, and decreased pupal weight, while indirect haze exposure, via ingestion of haze-exposed food plants, also affected development time and pupal weight. No smoke particles were found in the tracheae of subjects from the smoke treatment suggesting that the increase in development time and mortality of B. anynana under smoke conditions might be due to toxic smoke gases and toxic food, rather than particulate matter. These results document significant deleterious effect of haze smoke to the development, adult size, and survival of insects, key players in food-webs.
东南亚跨境雾霾含有森林火灾产生的气体和颗粒混合物，对人们的健康和当地经济产生负面影响。然而，雾霾对人类以外的生物的影响尚未得到充分研究。昆虫是食物网的重要组成部分，影响昆虫的环境干扰可能会影响整个生态系统。在这里，我们通过在人工产生的烟雾下饲养 Bicyclus anynana 蝴蝶以及在清洁空气中饲养但以先前暴露于烟雾的植物为食来研究雾霾如何直接和间接影响昆虫的生存、生长和发育。直接暴露于雾霾显著增加了毛毛虫的死亡率，延长了幼虫的发育时间，并降低了蛹重，而通过摄入雾霾暴露的食物植物进行间接暴露也会影响发育时间和蛹重。在烟雾处理组的昆虫气管中未发现烟雾颗粒，这表明在烟雾条件下 B. anynana 的发育时间延长和死亡率增加可能是由于有毒烟雾气体和有毒食物，而不是颗粒物。这些结果证明了雾霾对昆虫（食物网中的关键物种）的发育、成虫大小和生存的严重有害影响。
