Dear researchers,
what is your opinion about climate changes and forests pests?
there is an increase or reduction of damage caused by insects and mites on trees?
Please go through the following RG links.
Article Forest Insects and Climate Change
Article Forests and climate change - Lessons from insects
Article Responses of forest insect pests to climate change: not so simple
Hello Marcelo; I live in Southern California. For the last 50 years the nearby Transverse Mountain Ranges including the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains have experienced higher temperature regimes, long droughts, extensive boring beetle infestations and massive die offs of the dominant conifers including Pinus ponderosa, P. jeffreyi and Libocedrus decurrens. The same is true of the Sierra Nevada farther north. These landscape conversions to oak woodlands are agreed to be due to anthropogenic climate change.
Plant communities are creeping up the mountainsides. For instance, Pinyon/Juniper woodlands have moved up the local mountains by 200 m since 1940. I could go on but you get the idea. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers
Marcelo; I didn't answer your particular question. In this region among the most serious pests are the beetles Ips spp and Euwallacea sp. Jim Des Lauriers
Please go through the following RG links.
Article Forest Insects and Climate Change
Article Forests and climate change - Lessons from insects
Article Responses of forest insect pests to climate change: not so simple
Most of the responses of forest insect herbivores to lesser-known climate change are expected to be positive, with shorter generation time, higher fecundity and survival, leading to increased range expansion and outbreaks.
Forest insect pests can also benefit from synergistic effects of several climate change pressures, such as hotter droughts or warmer storms.
However, lesser-known negative effects are also likely, such as lethal effects of heatwaves or thermal shocks, less palatable host tissues or more abundant parasitoids and predators.
The complex interplay between abiotic stressors, host trees, insect ,herbivores and their natural enemies makes it very difficult to predict overall consequences of climate change on forest health.
The suitable environmental conditions including climate leads to increase the pests and increase the injuries that caused by them on trees and crops..
We currently see a worldwide reduction in insect biodiversity and an increase in damage caused by agricultural and forest pests.
Please click the following link.
https://academic.oup.com/forestry/article/89/3/245/1749621
may be they can change food preference or host plant with change in climate
Sunaullah, I believe that it's not possible to many species, especially monophages insects. The main altered factor about climate change is in the speed of generations, which is reduced (an acceleration in the life cycle).
Dear researchers,
Here an interesting paper:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339484412_Can_Cities_Activate_Sleeper_Species_and_Predict_Future_Forest_Pests_A_Case_Study_of_Scale_Insects
Climate change is a natural phenomenon occurring due to human interference. Climate change has the potential to affect forest plants and their impact on trees due to high temperature, altered precipitation, and extreme weather condition. This can affect forest pests directly or indirectly through interaction with host trees and natural enemies. Warmer temperature have effects on insects influencing their developmental rate and life cycle, while also affecting their host trees and natural enemies. Responses of forest insect pests to climate change may be positive- as such with shorter life cycle, more generations, higher fecundity and survival leading to increased outbreak causing more harm or it may show negative effects, in the sense that lethal effects of heat waves would cause higher mortality and hence more abundant would be their parasites and predators. Hence, the ultimate consequences between climate change, insect herbivores and host trees, and natural enemies of such insects, are difficult to predict.
Dear, Marcelo Tavares de Castro Climate change and human activities have unexplained consequences. One example in an article Article Establishment of the North American Eastern Eyed Click Beetl...
Regards, Pushkin Sergey Viktorovich
While I have certainly noted a change of the insect species I encounter, my work in regard to insects is mostly on diving beetles and dragonflies.
And for the dragonflies we certainly have gotten a few new species and others which used to be rare now are pushed out.
Neither of these are however pests, and dragonflies can from a human perspective rather be said to be the opposite.
But the number of flies are nowadays astonishing, I've had so many Sarcophagidae around my head that I many times had to stop coughing after getting one in the throat. And the number of Tabanidae could have driven me nuts more than once this season. This change have been very much to the worst in the last two decades. And I cannot imagine this will not be of concern for larger mammals in the area.
While Scolytinae is of concern for the forest industry it's a bit difficult to say if they have gotten more common or not due to the climate. Since the forest industry nowadays often leave timber logs and branches in the cutting areas. These provide a breeding ground for the bugs, so it's difficult to say if climate is part or not. And no I agree that I do not think most insects can change their feeding habit in short order, it do take considerable time.
There's one species that have arrived and which have started to cause problems here, but it's not an insect, but the slug Arion vulgaris. The spread is only partially due to climate - the main reason is humans and it spread via the selling of plants which are shipped all over europe.
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