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For ecology to stay ethical and maintain public support, we need to revisit invertebrate ethics in research.  With our recent advances in understanding invertebrate cognition and shifts in public opinion, an ethical re-examination of currently used methodologies is needed. In our article – ‘Keeping invertebrate research ethical in a landscape of shifting public opinion’ – that’s exactly what we aim to do.

Invertebrate Cognition

Recent work, particularly on lobsters, has raised questions about whether invertebrates can experience suffering. In lobsters for example, noxious stimuli can induce long term changes in behaviour, and these changes can be inhibited by adding analgesic. While these findings can be interpreted as evidence for pain perception in crustaceans, the question of invertebrate suffering is still hotly debated, and a firm consensus is still to be reached. But these studies, coupled with recent public concern about the ethics of large-scale sampling projects, highlight the need for discussion on invertebrate ethics in ecology research. Continue reading “Could We Be Treating Invertebrates More Ethically?”