Impacts of Climate Change on Plant-Herbivore-Natural Enemy Interactions

Abstract

Over the last century, the global climate has been changing rapidly. Numerous anthropogenic activities have caused an unprecedented increase in the concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ with other gases which consequently resulted in increased temperature and altered precipitation. In agriculture ecosystem, insect population dynamics are regulated by top-down forces i.e. predators and parasitoids feed on them and bottom-up forces where host plants regulate herbivore population. Climate change may directly affect all the organism in the trophic system at the same time changes in the first trophic level may subsequently bring changes in the following trophic levels which may further have implications on ecosystem services. Understanding of the way climate change factors may affect tri-trophic interactions may help farmers to adopt future pest management strategies. This review focuses on direct and mediated effects of climate change on plant-herbivore-natural enemy interactions as well as provides some suggestions for future research direction on predicting adverse effects of climate change on tri-trophic interactions.

Keywords: global warming, carbon di oxide, temperature, Ozone, predator, parasitoid