Forecasting thermal niche evolution in insect pests

Climate change is altering demography and distribution ranges of insect pests that greatly impact agriculture and cause severe socio-economic losses. Forecasting of insect pests’ responses to future climates is therefore a fundamental task for biologists.

We identify two knowledge-gaps that hamper current forecasting; i) poor mechanistic understanding of how thermal niches of insect pests evolve, and ii) a lack of accounting for historical contingencies and differences in founding genetic variation among natural populations.

We outline an empirical strategy to help fill these gaps by taking advantage of an experiment applying long-term laboratory evolution (>10-years) in a cosmopolitan pest on legume crops, the beetle Callosobruchus maculatus.

This allows us to assess the roles of historical contingencies and mechanistic trade-offs in shaping thermal niche evolution by censusing the repeatability of temperature adaptation in key genetic pathways and core life history traits that have fundamental impact on the agricultural footprint left by insect pests.

We evaluate the importance of these insights for eco-evolutionary forecasting by incorporating this data-informed mechanistic framework into state-of-the-art process-based models that project future agricultural impacts under climate change.

Together with CGIAR, we will communicate our results that will serve as a case in point for both scientists and stakeholders working towards agricultural best practices.