Arthropod - Interaction With Humans

Interaction With Humans

Crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and prawns have long been part of human cuisine, and are now farmed on a large commercial scale. Insects and their grubs are at least as nutritious as meat, and are eaten both raw and cooked in many non-Islamic and non-European cultures. Cooked tarantulas are considered a delicacy in Cambodia, and by the Piaroa Indians of southern Venezuela, after the highly irritant hairs – the spider's main defense system – are removed. Humans also unintentionally eat arthropods in other foods, and food safety regulations lay down acceptable contamination levels for different kinds of food material. The intentional cultivation of arthropods and other small animals for human food, referred to as minilivestock, is now emerging in animal husbandry as an ecologically sound concept.

However, the greatest contribution of arthropods to human food supply is by pollination: a 2008 study examined the 100 crops that FAO lists as grown for food, and estimated pollination's economic value as €153 billion, or 9.5% of the value of world agricultural production used for human food in 2005. Besides pollinating, bees produce honey, which is the basis of a rapidly growing industry and international trade.

The red dye cochineal, produced from a Central American species of insect, was economically important to the Aztecs and Mayans, and while the region was under Spanish control, becoming Mexico's second most-lucrative export; and it is now regaining some of the ground it lost to synthetic competitors. The blood of horseshoe crabs contains a clotting agent Limulus Amebocyte Lysate which is now used to test that antibiotics and kidney machines are free of dangerous bacteria, and to detect spinal meningitis and some cancers. Forensic entomology uses evidence provided by arthropods to establish the time and sometimes the place of death of a human, and in some cases the cause. Recently insects have also gained attention as potential sources of drugs and other medicinal substances.

The relative simplicity of the arthropods' body plan, allowing them to move on a variety of surfaces both on land and in water, have made them useful as models for robotics. The redundancy provided by segments allows arthropods and biomimetic robots to move normally even with damaged or lost appendages.

Although arthropods are the most numerous phylum on Earth, and thousands of arthropod species are venomous, they inflict relatively few serious bites and stings on humans. Far more serious are the effects on humans of diseases carried by blood-sucking insects. Other blood-sucking insects infect livestock with diseases that kill many animals and greatly reduce the usefulness of others. Ticks can cause tick paralysis and several parasite-borne diseases in humans. A few of the closely related mites also infest humans, causing intense itching, and others cause allergic diseases, including hay fever, asthma and eczema.

Many species of arthropods, principally insects but also mites, are agricultural and forest pests. The mite Varroa destructor has become the largest single problem faced by beekeepers worldwide. Efforts to control arthropod pests by large-scale use of pesticides have caused long term effects on human health and on biodiversity. Increasing arthropod resistance to pesticides has led to the development of integrated pest management using a wide range of measures including biological control. Predatory mites may be useful in controlling some mite pests.