Multidecadal, continent-level analysis indicates agricultural practices impact wheat aphid loads more than climate change

Abstract

Temperature has a large influence on insect abundances, thus under climate change, identifying major drivers affecting pest insect populations is critical to world food security and agricultural ecosystem health. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis with data obtained from 120 studies across China and Europe from 1970 to 2017 to reveal how climate and agricultural practices affect populations of wheat aphids. Here we showed that aphid loads on wheat had distinct patterns between these two regions, with a significant increase in China but a decrease in Europe over this time period. Although temperature increased over this period in both regions, we found no evidence showing climate warming affected aphid loads. Rather, differences in pesticide use, fertilization, land use, and natural enemies between China and Europe may be key factors accounting for differences in aphid pest populations. These long-term data suggest that agricultural practices impact wheat aphid loads more than climate warming.

Description
Advisor
Degree
Type
Journal article
Keywords
Citation

Sun, Xiao, Sun, Yumei, Ma, Ling, et al.. "Multidecadal, continent-level analysis indicates agricultural practices impact wheat aphid loads more than climate change." Communications Biology, 5, (2022) Springer Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03731-z.

Has part(s)
Forms part of
Rights
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Citable link to this page