Thanks for the useful context, Bob. Is there any grant round on soil animals that you would be willing to run for less than 100 k$? It does not have to be about investigating sentience, or comparing the welfare of soil animals with that of humans, and it could be about soil ants or termites.

By "robustly increase welfare", I meant that welfare is expected to increase (under expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism (ETHU); ignoring moral uncertainty), and this conclusion is not sensitive to close to arbitrary empirical assumptions (for example, whether invertebrates of some species have positive or negative lives). You do not think intervention 14 satisfies this?

Are you confident that biofuel subsidies decrease the population of invertebrates? From Table 1 of the report, accounting only for invertebrates with at least "2mm" (macrofauna), corn with 357 animals per m^2 (= 126 + 231) replaces grassland with 970 animals per m^2 (= 441 + 529), thus leading to 613 fewer animals per m^2 corn (= 970 - 357). However, from Table S4 of Rosenberg et al. (2023) (in the Supplementary Materials), replacing temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands with crops results in 598 more soil ants, termites, and other soil arthropods besides springtails and mites (macroarthropods) per m^2 (= (-1.06 + 1.66)*10^3 + 0.533). The change in the number of animals per m^2 is -1.06 k for soil ants, 1.66 k for soil termites, and 0.533 for soil arthropods besides springtails and mites. Adding up the lower/upper bounds of the 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) in Table S4, I conclude there are 900 to 6.4 k macroarthropods per m^2 in crops, and 172 to 7.00 k in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands. There is significant overlap between these ranges. So it is unclear to me whether replacing temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands with crops increases or decreases the number of macroarthropods. The same goes for replacing grassland with crops in the United States (US)?

I also think it is worth looking into the effects of increasing cropland on the number of microarthropods and nematodes. I have see macroarthropods, microarthropods, nematodes, or any combination of these being the major driver of total welfare.

Replacing temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands with crops robustly decreases the number of soil springtails and mites (microarthropods) according to Table S4 of Rosenberg et al. (2023). Adding up the lower/upper bounds of the 95 % CIs, there are 11 k to 37 k soil microarthropods per m^2 in crops, and 70 k to 170 k in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands. There is no overlap between these ranges.

However, I believe replacing crops with grassland may increase or decrease the number of soil animals accounting for all animals. The vast majority of soil animals are nematodes, and Figure 7 of the meta-analysis of Pothula et al. (2019), which is below, suggests it is very unclear whether agricultural land has more or fewer soil nematodes than natural or disturbed grassland, or forest. White (2022) concludes "nematode abundance is higher in managed than unmanaged primary and secondary habitats", which is compatible with crops having more nematodes than grassland.

That said, our confidence in our own position is not high. So, we’d be willing to fund things to challenge our own views: If we had sufficient funding from folks interested in the question, Arthropoda would fund a grant round specifically on soil invertebrate sentience and relevant natural history studies (especially in ways that attempt to capture the likely enormous range of differences between species in this group). Currently, much of our grant-making funds are restricted (at least informally) to farmed insects and shrimp, so it’s not an option.

Could you elaborate on what would be "sufficient funding" for "a grant round specifically on soil invertebrate sentience and relevant natural history studies"?

Thanks for sharing, Bob. The database seems like a great resource to build interest in increasing the welfare of wild animals. Do you think any of the 28 interventions there robustly increase (total) welfare (in expectation) accounting for all animals (in particular, soil animals)? The only one I feel confident achieves this is "Insecticides and insect welfare: a research agenda" (14; here is the report, and here is scoring sheet).

Hi Michael.

Animal agriculture has huge effects on wild animals (land use, climate change) but with unclear sign, so farmed animal work could backfire spectacularly.

Here is an illustration of the above.

Even chicken welfare reforms have effects on land use.

I think chicken welfare reforms may impact soil ants and termites much more than chickens.

Thanks for the great post.

Life spans of insects, however, are quite variable. Carey (2001) notes that the between-group variation is enormous: for herbivores, this range includes aphids with a lifespan of weeks, to xylem-feeding beetles that take several years to reach maturity, to termite queens that can live for decades. This 5000-fold difference in the life spans of insects

Did you mean 500-fold difference? 1 decade is 522 weeks (= 10*365.25/7).

I see. I agree an infinitesimal change to one of 2 exactly identical states could make their expected welfare incomparable under your framework. However, it does not follow that any 2 interventions are incomparable with respect to how much they change expected welfare (across all space and time). I think intervals representing the expected change in welfare are sufficiently narrow for any decision-relevant comparisons to be feasible, although very often with lots of (standard) uncertainty involved.

Hi CB. I would be curious to know your thoughts on my post Chicken welfare reforms may impact soil ants and termites much more than chickens?. You are welcome to comment on the post.

• What makes two actions incomparable, under the imprecise EV model, is that the interval of EV differences crosses zero.

What exactly do you mean by "interval of EV differences"? Imagine A = [a1, a2], and B = [b1, b2] are intervals representing the imprecise expected welfare of 2 states of the world, and that b2 >= a2. What would be the "interval of EV differences" between B and A in terms of a1, a2, b1, and b2? I thought it would be B - A = [b1 - a2, b2 - a1].

Hello. I would take for granted that all animals are sentient, and focus on assessing the distribution of the intensity of subjective experiences. I think asking about the probability of sentience of an animal shares some of the issues of asking about the probability that an object is hot. People have different concepts about what "hot" means, and they do not depend just on temperature (for example, the minimum temperature for hot wood is higher than the minimum temperature for hot metal because this transfers heat more efficiently). I understand sentience as having subjective experiences whose intensity is not exactly 0. However, I suspect you are right that some people understand it as having subjective experiences which are sufficiently intense. Different bars for this will lead to different probabilities. Asking about the distribution of the intensity of subjective experiences mitigates this. For example, one could ask about the probability of the mean intensity of the pain shrimps experience during air asphyxiation exceeding the intensity of disabling pain in humans.