Perl Craig D, Kissinger Cat, Godfrey R Keating, Castillo Enrique M, Fischer Bob, Barrett Meghan
Insect Welfare Research Society, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America.
Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2025 Aug 18;20(8):e0328931. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0328931. eCollection 2025.
Transparent reporting on the ethical treatment of research animals (e.g., implementation of the 3Rs, replace, reduce, and refine) is recommended when publishing in peer-reviewed literature. This is meant to foster public trust, safeguard animal welfare, and generate reproducible science. However, entomologists are not expected to engage in such reporting, as their research is not subject to legislated ethical review. Recently, however, entomologists have reported increased concern about the ethical treatment of insects in research, and associated reproducibility and public trust issues. To what degree are these increasing concerns reflected in changes in practices? We surveyed 15 high-impact journals that publish on insects over 20 years to collect data on reporting related to the ethical treatment of insects in research, including animal reduction methods, analgesics/anesthesia statements, and information regarding sacrifice. Out of 1359 sampled papers, no studies reported any methods to reduce animal use. Over 20 years, we found an increase in the proportion of papers reporting insect death and a decrease in the papers reporting significant invasive handling. 84% of papers with significant animal handling or death did not report the use of any anesthetics. We also found an increase in animal-treatment-specific ethics statements (from 0% to 8%), largely driven by the journal Animal Behaviour. We end by 1) making recommendations for entomologists looking to improve their reporting practices and 2) providing tools to improve transparent reporting of information related to the ethical treatment of insects in research.
在同行评审文献中发表文章时，建议对实验动物的伦理处理进行透明报告（例如，实施3R原则，即替代、减少和优化）。这旨在增进公众信任、保障动物福利并产生可重复的科学成果。然而，昆虫学家无需进行此类报告，因为他们的研究不受法定伦理审查的约束。然而，最近昆虫学家报告称，他们对研究中昆虫的伦理处理以及相关的可重复性和公众信任问题越来越关注。这些日益增加的担忧在实践变化中得到了多大程度的体现呢？我们调查了15种在过去20年中发表昆虫相关文章的高影响力期刊，以收集有关研究中昆虫伦理处理报告的数据，包括动物减少方法、镇痛剂/麻醉声明以及关于处死的信息。在1359篇抽样论文中，没有研究报告任何减少动物使用的方法。在20年的时间里，我们发现报告昆虫死亡的论文比例有所增加，而报告重大侵入性操作的论文比例有所下降。84%进行了重大动物操作或导致动物死亡的论文未报告使用任何麻醉剂。我们还发现特定动物处理伦理声明有所增加（从0%增至8%），这主要是由《动物行为》期刊推动的。最后，我们1）为希望改进报告做法的昆虫学家提出建议，2）提供工具以改善研究中昆虫伦理处理相关信息的透明报告。
