Jul 2026· Journal of global agriculture and ecology· Vol 18, pp. 132-145· 0 citations
Abstract
Rising global temperatures, shifting precipitation regimes, and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide are altering the geographic ranges, phenology, and population dynamics of insect pests that damage the world's major food crops. This review synthesises evidence on the physiological mechanisms, observed range shifts, and projected redistribution of agriculturally important insect species under contemporary and future climate scenarios. Poleward and altitudinal expansions have already been documented across multiple pest taxa, with average latitudinal displacement rates in the low single-digit kilometres per year, and modelling studies project further acceleration under mid- and high-emission trajectories. Case evidence from fall armyworm, cotton leafworm, maize stemborers, and several rice pests illustrates how thermal tolerance, developmental plasticity, and host-plant availability jointly determine the pace and direction of range change. Elevated carbon dioxide modifies host-plant nutritional and defensive chemistry in ways that can either suppress or, in some circumstances, enhance herbivore performance, complicating simple temperature-based forecasts. Economic assessments indicate that warming-driven increases in insect-mediated crop losses could reach double-digit percentage increases per degree Celsius for staple cereals, disproportionately affecting temperate breadbasket regions, while invasive insects already impose costs exceeding tens of billions of US dollars annually worldwide. Species distribution modelling, mechanistic niche models, and hybrid approaches are increasingly used to anticipate these shifts, though model uncertainty, incomplete occurrence data, and neglect of biotic interactions remain persistent limitations. The review closes by identifying priority research directions, drawing overall conclusions for policy and practice, and acknowledging the methodological limitations inherent to a narrative synthesis of a rapidly evolving evidence base.
Climate change is altering the physiology, phenology, distribution and interaction networks of agricultural insect pests and the natural enemies that regulate them, yet the literature addressing these changes remains fragmented across disciplines and taxa. This critical narrative review synthesises evidence on how rising temperatures, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, altered precipitation and increasing climatic variability affect insect pests and their predators, parasitoids and entomopathogens in agricultural systems, and evaluates the resulting implications for crop protection. Warming generally accelerates insect development, increases voltinism and extends the geographical range of many pest species, while its effects on natural enemies are more variable and frequently negative, owing to a combination of lower thermal optima among parasitoids relative to their hosts, disrupted phenological synchrony, and altered chemosensory cues that impair host or prey location. Elevated carbon dioxide most often reduces host-plant nitrogen content, prompting compensatory feeding by herbivores, with inconsistent consequences for third-trophic-level performance. Case evidence from the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, bark beetle outbreaks in coniferous forests, desert locust plagues linked to Indian Ocean climate variability, and cereal aphid–parasitoid systems illustrates convergent patterns of pest release alongside marked context-dependency. Meta-analytic evidence indicates that predators continue to suppress pests and support yield across a range of climates, and that landscape complexity can buffer biological control against climatic variability, offering a partial counterweight to the more pessimistic single-species findings. Methodological heterogeneity, including short experimental durations, single-factor manipulations, and geographic concentration of research in temperate systems, limits confidence in generalising current findings to tropical and subtropical smallholder systems where food security risks are often greatest. Research priorities include multifactorial and multigenerational experiments, standardised reporting of thermal and moisture regimes, and expanded evidence from under-represented regions and cropping systems. The review concludes that climate change is reshaping the balance of tritrophic interactions in ways that generally favour pests over their natural enemies, but that this outcome is neither universal nor immutable, and that landscape-scale conservation of natural enemy diversity is among the more defensible adaptive strategies currently supported by evidence.
M. Rawat, D. S. Parihar· Uttar Pradesh Journal of Zoo...· 0 citations
Climate change influences the physiology and population dynamics of ectothermic pests, with major repercussions for global crop production. Yet, how evolution modulates these outcomes remains unclear. We exposed the widespread beetle pest Callosobruchus maculatus to 10 years of experimental evolution at different temperatures and quantified thermal responses of life-history traits. Hot- and cold-adapted populations evolved differences in thermal sensitivity, but these were modest relative to evolved differences in trait averages. By leveraging high-resolution temperature time-series we show that the observed evolution translates into cold-adapted genotypes having highest fitness in cold climates and hot-adapted genotypes in warm climates. Hot-adapted beetles maximize fitness in warm climates by increased larval growth, resulting in larger body sizes and higher fecundity. This evolutionary strategy compounds projected crop losses under warming by increasing both intrinsic population growth and per-capita host consumption rates. By year 2100 under intermediate-to-high warming (SSP3-7.0), pest evolution is projected to increase global crop damage potential by +113% from present—twice that expected from warming alone (not accounting for evolution). In major crop-producing areas, where temperatures and the beetles’ host consumption rates are already high, warming increases average crop damage potential by +29%, but evolution amplifies this three-fold to +87%. Evolution also expands C. maculatus’ projected colonizable range and in some regions even flips forecasted crop damage reductions into increases. These results identify climate-driven evolution of pest life-histories as an amplifier of agricultural losses and suggest that current projections may significantly understate the threat warming poses to future food security.
Loke von Schmalensee, Camila Rocabado-Peñanco, Elise Cazaux et al.· bioRxiv· 0 citations
Rising global temperatures have altered the frequency, intensity and spatial distribution of extreme weather events, with direct and measurable consequences for agricultural productivity worldwide. This review synthesises evidence on how heatwaves, drought, flooding, tropical cyclones and their compound or sequential combinations affect the yield of major cereal and grain legume crops, with particular attention to wheat, maize, rice and soybean. Physiological mechanisms underlying yield loss are examined alongside field- and satellite-derived evidence of production shortfalls, and the modulating role of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is considered. The review further evaluates adaptation strategies, including climate-smart agriculture, breeding for abiotic stress tolerance and agronomic management, and identifies the growing recognition that compound extremes, rather than single hazards, now pose the greatest threat to global food security. Evidence indicates that yield penalties associated with extreme heat, water deficit and excess soil moisture are often non-linear and interact with crop developmental stage, soil condition and regional climate. The review concludes that closing gaps in compound-event attribution, regionally disaggregated yield data and the integration of adaptation research across disciplines remains essential for safeguarding future food production under a changing climate.
Basharat Bashir, L. Ahmad, S. Qayoom et al.· International Journal of Env...· 0 citations
Stored-product insects threaten global food security, yet the environmental mechanisms governing their responses to climate change remain poorly understood. Existing pest distribution projections rarely integrate diurnal thermal variability with agricultural land use. Here, we show that diurnal thermal variability, together with agricultural land use, is a major determinant of habitat suitability for three globally important Callosobruchus pests across the Middle East. Using optimized species distribution models integrating climate, topography, and cropland under contrasting CMIP6 climate scenarios, we demonstrate that mean diurnal temperature range and cropland consistently emerge as the strongest predictors across all species, revealing the importance of daily thermal fluctuations beyond mean warming alone. Under the low-emission scenario (SSP1-2.6), suitable habitat by mid-century expands substantially for C. chinensis and C. phaseoli, while remaining little changed overall for C. maculatus, for which comparable local expansion and contraction largely offset one another; under the high-emission scenario (SSP5-8.5), gains are reduced, and localized contractions occur, particularly for C. chinensis and C. maculatus, the latter shifting to a slight net loss in total suitable area. Persistent climatic refugia remain along Mediterranean and Red Sea coastal regions, whereas habitat losses are concentrated in the northern Gulf lowlands and Zagros foothills. Our findings identify diurnal thermal variability as an overlooked dimension of stored-product pest ecology and show that integrating agricultural landscapes with climate projections can improve forecasts of future pest risk, providing a framework for climate-informed surveillance, biosecurity, and adaptation.
Rasha K. Al-Akeel, M. Soliman, A. Alkhaibari et al.· Agriculture· 0 citations
Plantation crops such as coffee, cocoa, tea, oil palm, natural rubber, banana, coconut and sugarcane underpin the rural economies of much of the tropical and subtropical world, yet their long production cycles and comparatively narrow climatic tolerances make them acutely exposed to a changing climate. This review synthesises and critically evaluates evidence on how rising temperature, altered rainfall, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide and shifting biotic pressures are affecting these crops, and asks whether the literature supports a coherent account of vulnerability and adaptive capacity across such a heterogeneous group of species. Evidence was drawn from open-access and publisher-indexed peer-reviewed journals, institutional sources, and citation searching of recent reviews. Three broad conclusions emerge. First, thermal and hydrological stress already constrain yield and quality in several crops, with effects that are frequently non-linear around genotype-specific optima rather than simple linear declines. Second, elevated carbon dioxide confers a measurable but contested physiological benefit that interacts with, and in some cases partially offsets, warming and drought stress; the magnitude of this offset varies sharply between short-duration controlled experiments and field-scale, water-limited conditions, and carries consequences for crop quality that are distinct from its effects on biomass. Third, species distribution and process-based models converge on a general poleward and upslope redistribution of both crops and their associated pests and pathogens, although the two modelling traditions disagree substantially on magnitude and, in the case of cocoa, on the direction of projected change once carbon dioxide fertilisation and land-use constraints are incorporated. Agroforestry and shade management emerge as the most consistently supported agronomic adaptation strategy, buffering microclimatic extremes, although the net effect on resilience is contingent on soil water availability and on the forward-looking climatic suitability of the shade species selected. The evidence base is markedly uneven across crops, with coffee and cocoa disproportionately represented relative to rubber, coconut, tea, oil palm, banana and sugarcane. The review identifies priority needs for longitudinal, multi-decadal field trials that combine elevated carbon dioxide with realistic water limitation, for process-based models capable of separating suitability from harvestable yield, and for expanded physiological research on the least-studied plantation crops.
Gayatri D. Bhuyan, Plabita Saikia, R. P. Bhuyan et al.· Journal of Advances in Biolo...· 0 citations
Climate change and altered weather patterns increasingly influence insect migration, pest outbreaks, pollinator activity, and vector distribution in India. This review examines the major climatic drivers affecting insect movement, with an emphasis on rising temperatures, monsoon variability, unseasonal rainfall, drought, cyclones, and other extreme weather events. The manuscript focuses on key migratory or climate-sensitive insect groups, including desert locust, fall armyworm, butterflies, honeybees, mosquitoes, and dragonflies, and discusses their ecological, agricultural, and public health relevance. Evidence presented in the review indicates that warming conditions can accelerate insect development, modify seasonal activity, extend breeding periods, and enable range expansion into new agro-climatic zones. Irregular monsoon patterns and extreme weather events can further influence breeding success, migration timing, dispersal routes, and outbreak intensity. Migratory pests such as desert locust and fall armyworm pose risks to crop production, whereas changes in pollinator movement and abundance can affect pollination-dependent crops. Climate-sensitive mosquito vectors can also expand into areas where temperature and humidity conditions become favourable. The review highlights the importance of improved surveillance, climate-linked forecasting, geospatial tools, radar-based monitoring, ecological niche modelling, and long-term insect migration datasets. It also emphasizes the need for integrated approaches involving entomology, climatology, agriculture, biodiversity conservation, and public health. Strengthening climate-resilient monitoring systems and adaptive management strategies is essential for reducing risks associated with climate-driven insect migration in India.
Saima Hamid, S. Pathania, Tamjeeda Nisar et al.· Journal of Advances in Biolo...· 0 citations