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Natural World
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Last updated
March 21, 2026

Insects

Research reveals that air pollution significantly disrupts insect pollination, with polluted plants receiving up to 70% fewer insect visits and up to 90% fewer flower visits. Studies show that pollutants like ozone and nitrogen oxides degrade the chemical signals insects rely on to locate flowers, reducing pollinator performance by over 30% and lowering successful pollination rates.
  • Plants smothered by pollutants were visited by up to 70% fewer insects overall, and their flowers received 90% fewer visits compared with those in unpolluted plots (Ryalls et al., 2024)
  • The black mustard plants used in the experiment, which can self-fertilise, exhibited a drop of 14% to 31% in successful pollination (Zimmer, 2024)
  • Gases such as ozone or nitrogen oxide will quickly react with these molecules and cause odour signals to vanish even faster than usual or even cause some compounds to vanish entirely (Zimmer, 2024)
  • At high ozone levels, fig wasps even avoided the plant odour (Zimmer, 2024)
  • Depending on the species, ozone can increase or decrease flower numbers, the quality and quantity of nectar or pollen, and influence the timing of flowering (Duque & Steffan‐Dewenter, 2024)‍
  • Air pollution causes a more than 30% reduction in pollinator performance (Ryalls et al., 2024)
  • Air pollution disrupts ants' ability to smell (Jiang et al, 2026)

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