Complex responses of global insect pests to climate change

Abstract

Insect pests strongly affect the productivity and profitability of agriculture and forestry. Despite the well-known sensitivity of insects to abiotic effects such as temperature, their potential responses to ongoing climate change remain unclear. Here we compile and review documented climate change responses of 31 of the globally most impactful phytophagous insect pests, focussing on species for which long-term, high-quality data are available. Most of the selected species show at least one response affecting their severity as pests, including changes in geographic range, population dynamics, life-history traits, and/or trophic interactions. Of the studied pests, 41% only show responses that are linked to increased pest severity, 4% only show responses of decreased severity, whereas importantly 55%, the majority of studied pests, show mixed responses including both increased and decreased severity under ongoing climate change. Variability in impact is further supported by a thermal sensitivity analysis showing little benefit of climate warming in relation to the optimal developmental temperatures for the majority of these pests under both current climate and future projections. Overall the results show that calculating the net effect of climate change on phytophagous insect pest impact is far from straightforward. The documented variation in responses, e.g. between agricultural and forest pests, indicates that efforts to mitigate undesirable climate change effects must target individual species, taking into account the complex ecological and evolutionary mechanisms underlying their responses.