UCC president involved in research on role of insects in carbon emissions
Glengarriff Nature Reserve in Co Cork was the Irish location used in the research. Picture: Richard Gordon
Groundbreaking new research involving University College Cork's (UCC) new president has quantified the "amazing" role of insects in the carbon emissions natural cycle.
Prof John O'Halloran, an ecologist and zoologist, was part of an international research team that gauged how much carbon is released from rotting wood worldwide, as well as the role that insects play in the process.
The project, led by the Bavarian Forest National Park and coordinated by the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg and the Technical University of Munich, examined 55 forest locations on six continents. The researchers laid out wood from more than 140 tree species to assess the influence of climate on the rate of decomposition.
Glengarriff Nature Reserve in Co Cork was the Irish location used in the research, undertaken by Allen Whittaker, Ilse Corkery, and Anthony Caravaggi of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
The study entitled ‘The contribution of insects to global forest deadwood decomposition’ was published on Wednesday by the academic journal , considered to be one of the most important in the scientific field.
It found that some 10.9 gigatons of carbon are released from rotting wood worldwide every year, which is about 115% of the emissions from fossil fuels.
It noted that "not all carbon that is released from deadwood through decomposition is emitted to the atmosphere, as parts are immobilised in the biosphere or in soils".
However, insects play a pivotal role in absorbing and regulating what is emitted.
Prof O'Halloran said: "We know that temperature, moisture, and indeed insect composition bacteria and fungi are critical for decomposition. What we didn’t know up to now was the extent of the role played by insects in that process.
"This is really important because it is only with a detailed understanding of the processes by which carbon is released that we can model the future challenges in relation to carbon budgeting."
The role that insects play, which was hitherto unknown, is "amazing", according to Prof O'Halloran.
"We found that 29% of the carbon that's released from forests is actually released through insect decomposition.
“We also found that each of those individual systems, whether it's in the tropical area, the boreal area, the temperate area, behave differently."
Tropical areas are those near the equator, boreal are northern regions, and temperate areas are those between the polar and tropics.
Prof O'Halloran added: "We found that in the tropical areas 93% of the carbon was being released through the decomposition of insects, and then as you moved up into the temperate and boreal areas the observed contribution of insects reduces.
“The significance of this is that our study marks the first time the role that insects play in releasing carbon from deadwood in forests has been quantified, and it is really exciting."
According to , insects are pivotal to the ecological and environmental cycles. For example, one out of every three bites of food humans eat relies on pollination in the production process.
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