Arthropods as a Sustainable Biomonitoring Tool for Environmental Pollution

Arthropods include crabs, lobsters, prawns, crayfish, insects, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, centipedes, millipedes and others that are providing unique ecological roles as individuals or groups in the environment hence, some of them are identified as exceptional and sustainable tool for monitoring environmental pollution. Whenever a natural ecosystem is disrupted, some key species therein are killed, making ways for invasive species to thrive thus, supporting unbalanced ecosystems. For the sustainability of balanced ecosystems, effective monitoring approaches and techniques are crucial in order to assess and identify pollution sources, quantify their levels, assess compliance with regulations, ascertain early warning systems, evaluate their control measures, and adopt the ones that match with the international standards. One of the cost-effective approaches to monitoring environmental pollution, is the use of arthropods, which authorities have appraised to be a sustainable tool in monitoring pollution in different ecosystems. The use of arthropods for monitoring environmental pollution has gained prominence all over the world due to their abundance, diversity, sensitivity to environmental changes, diverse habitats, and potentials to accumulate pollutants. In this chapter, the use of arthropods as a tool for monitoring environmental pollution were exhaustively reviewed from literature. The benefits and characteristics of arthropods as a tool for sustainable monitoring of environmental pollution, their collection, and identification techniques were presented. Descriptive procedures involved in the sampling of arthropods from different ecosystems and their merits were highlighted while the recent advances in identifying them were espoused. Representation of arthropod taxa that are essential in pollution monitoring, the groups that serve as indicator species, and early warning systems of different contaminations were equally discussed. Embracing interdisciplinary researches and relying on advanced sampling and identification techniques were projected as means of mitigating the challenges and limitations of using arthropods for monitoring environmental pollution.