Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Research-animal welfare concerns have expanded rapidly across taxa over the past decade, with an increasing focus on invertebrates. Recent evidence for affective experience across cephalopod, decapod, and insect taxa, combined with shifts in public attitudes and regulation, has raised the stakes of how invertebrates are used and reported in published research, yet no existing reporting standard adequately addresses invertebrates. Here we propose INSTAR (INvertebrate Standards for Treatment And Reporting) v1.0, an 18- item reporting standard. It does not assess or score welfare; it asks authors to report all facets of the handling and treatment of invertebrates in research and the reasoning behind it, spanning three cross-cutting foundations (Subjects, Procedures, and Ethics & Compliance) and five welfare domains adapted from the Mellor assessment model (Nutrition, Environment, Health, Behaviour, Affective state). The framework is designed for flexible use in both laboratory and field contexts, and is supported by an R package and accompanying web tool that produce a standardised summary figure and report in the spirit of reporting frameworks from other fields. We surveyed 150 recent papers across 15 journals spanning ecology, evolution, behaviour, physiology, and applied invertebrate research, and found that current reporting norms fall substantially short of these standards. The median paper reports just over three in five applicable items, with welfare-specific items (humane endpoints, three-Rs statements, and affective-state indicators) rarely reported. INSTAR is designed to be minimally burdensome. Its primary output is a completed reporting sheet deposited alongside the paper, no more work than the methods paragraph itself, with an optional summary figure rendered from it. Free software fills, renders, and audits reports. We outline practical roles for authors, reviewers, editors, journals, ethics bodies, and funders. Adopting it now would improve the reproducibility and comparability of invertebrate research, strengthen the social licence on which that research depends, and let the field shape the institutional response to invertebrate welfare rather than be shaped by it.
DOI: 10.32942/x2dx2d
Authors: Thomas White, Kate Lynch, Jonathan Amory, Caitlyn Forster, Adam Hart, Tanya Latty, Kate Umbers, Eleanor Drinkwater
Language: English
Subfield: Small Animals
Field: Veterinary
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214183898