About this Group
Climate change
The effects of anthropogenic climate change are now being felt in all terrestrial ecosystems. The group aims to provide a forum for the discussion of studies into the impacts of this phenomenon on all aspects of insect biology and ecology.
Import issues include the creation of conditions that may lead to the ingress of invasive species, changes in insect distributions and loss of habitat. Changes in phenologies may have widespread impacts as a given insects occurrence becomes asynchronous with host plant or breeding site. Similarly, crop pests and the complex of parasitoids, predators and pathogens that regulate their populations may increasingly fail to co-occur, leading to perturbations in biological control. For some species, as the planet warms there will be simply nowhere to go and extinction beckons.
The group welcomes contributions on all aspects of the problem, from insect conservation to pest control, and held its first meeting at the Central Science Laboratory in the autumn of 2008.
Lucy Alford
Scott Hayward
Nina Zevgolis
Convenors
Activities
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The Impact of Extreme Events 2024
Thursday 25 April 2024
Arts Two Lecture Theatre, Queen Mary University of London
Our Climate Change and Medical & Veterinary Special Interest Groups came together to run this exciting joint hybrid conference on the impact of extreme events on insects. The conference covered a range of topics including historical data on climate and biodiversity, vector biology, changing spatial distributions and phenology, as well as understanding physiological responses of insects to improve predictive models, along with talks addressing other challenges, e.g., invasive species, vector ecology, food security, conservation etc. and how research can help develop policy.
Read more about the conference.
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2016 Meeting
Talk: Evolutionary shifts in host plant use in response to climate change in the UK Brown Argus butterfly
Jon Bridle, Maaike de Jong, James Buckley
Download: Bridle RES talk 2016 8,241Kb
