Climate change and forest plagues: assessing current and future impacts of diprionid sawflies on the pine forests of north-western Mexico.

Víctor M Aguilera-Molina,Khutzy K Munguía-Ortega,F Sara Ceccarelli,Eulogio López-Reyes,Andrés Martínez-Aquino

doi:10.7717/peerj.7220

Víctor M Aguilera-Molina, Khutzy K Munguía-Ortega + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7220

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Abstract

The imminent threat of climate change lies in its potential to disrupt the balance of ecosystems, particularly vulnerable areas such as mountain-top remnant forests. An example of such a fragile ecosystem is the Sierra San Pedro Mártir (SSPM) National Park of Mexico’s Baja California state, where high levels of endemism can be found, and which is home to one of the country’s few populations of the emblematic Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi). Recent outbreaks of pine-feeding sawfly larvae in SSPM increase the vulnerability of this forest ecosystem, calling for immediate assessments of the severity of this threat. Here, we present a thorough study of the sawfly’s biology and distribution, carrying out molecular and morphology-based identification of the species and creating model-based predictions of the species distribution in the area. The sawfly was found to belong to an undescribed species of the genus Zadiprion (family Diprionidae) with a one-year life-cycle. The distribution of this species appears to be restricted to the SSPM national park and it will probably persist for at least another 50 years, even considering the effects of climate change.

Highlights

The health and ecological balance of forests is being compromised by the rising temperatures, CO2 concentration and increase in droughts brought about by climate change (Allen et al, 2010; Trenberth et al, 2007)
Regarding the identification of the diprionid in this study, the evolutionary divergence based on pairwise p-distances in the COX-1 gene fragment with Z. rohweri suggests that the individuals in this study most likely belong to the genus Zadiprion
We provide a more detailed picture of the biology and distribution of a newly-registered sawfly species which represents an emergent threat to a vulnerable ecosystem: the pine forests of north-western Mexico’s Sierra San Pedro Mártir (SSPM) national park

Summary

Introduction

The health and ecological balance of forests is being compromised by the rising temperatures, CO2 concentration and increase in droughts brought about by climate change (Allen et al, 2010; Trenberth et al, 2007). Added to these abiotic stressors, pest species will have stronger adverse effects on weakened trees (Bentz et al, 2010; Haavik et al, 2015; Kolb et al, 2016). A correlation has been found between higher winter temperatures and the intensity of outbreaks in Neodiprion sertifer, one of the most aggressive diprionid defoliator of pines in Europe. This correlation is due to the fact that higher winter temperatures result in a lower mortality rate of N. sertifer eggs (Neuvonen, Pekka & Tarmo, 1999)

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