“Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate” (2018), by Curtis Anthony Deutsch et al. Agriculture and Biology research paper. Original abstract below, unchanged. No free PDF was found.

Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate

Curtis Anthony Deutsch, Joshua J. Tewksbury, Michelle Tigchelaar et al. · August 30, 2018 · Agriculture and Biology

Abstract

Insect pests substantially reduce yields of three staple grains-rice, maize, and wheat-but models assessing the agricultural impacts of global warming rarely consider crop losses to insects. We use established relationships between temperature and the population growth and metabolic rates of insects to estimate how and where climate warming will augment losses of rice, maize, and wheat to insects. Global yield losses of these grains are projected to increase by 10 to 25% per degree of global mean surface warming. Crop losses will be most acute in areas where warming increases both population growth and metabolic rates of insects. These conditions are centered primarily in temperate regions, where most grain is produced.

Source page DOI: 10.1126/science.aat3466

Read papers like this every day in Nerdi

Three real papers a day, always with the original abstract. Free on iPhone.

More in Agriculture and Biology

All new Agriculture and Biology papers