%0 Journal Article
%T Oxidative Balance Constrains Insect Stress Tolerance, Aging, and Reproductive Investment Through Shared Physiological Trade-Offs
%A Laura Keller
%A Thomas Lehmann
%A Simon Brunner
%A Christoph Meier
%A David Thompson
%J Entomological Research Letters
%@ 3108-639X
%D 2023
%V 3
%N 2
%R 10.51847/PsV58cEPZY
%P 72-83
%X Oxidative physiology is frequently invoked to explain insect responses to environmental stress, aging, and reproductive investment, yet the underlying evidence does not support a single continuum in which reactive oxygen species invariably represent damage, greater antioxidant activity invariably represents protection, or reproduction necessarily reduces somatic maintenance. This article develops a proposed physiological model in which oxidative balance is treated as a dynamic analytical state emerging from reactive-species generation and signaling, antioxidant and stress-protective capacity, molecular susceptibility, damage and repair, environmental demand, and life-history allocation. Evidence from insects shows that reactive oxygen species can participate in defined signaling pathways while also accumulating during damaging physiological states; antioxidant-related defenses can improve stress tolerance, but their effects depend on pathway, tissue, genotype, and exposure; and thermal, xenobiotic, nutritional, social, and activity-related challenges generate responses that vary with stage, stress history, and ecological context. Aging likewise cannot be reduced to cumulative oxidation because redox-sensitive maintenance, intervention timing, genotype, sex, activity, and laboratory–field transfer modify observed relationships. Reproductive evidence is especially heterogeneous: oxidative costs occur in some systems, are absent for particular behaviors or markers in others, and can be reversed in eusocial insects. The proposed oxidative-balance model therefore interprets stress tolerance, aging, and reproductive investment as conditionally coupled outcomes rather than obligatory consequences of a fixed oxidative budget.
%U https://esvpub.com/article/oxidative-balance-constrains-insect-stress-tolerance-aging-and-reproductive-investment-through-sha-wp6ifrpbghsr107