Abstract
Climate change affects agriculture through a range of direct and indirect pathways. These include direct changes to impacts of pests and diseases on crops and indirect effects produced by interactions between organisms. It remains unclear whether the net effects of these biotic influences will be beneficial or detrimental to crop yield because few studies consider multiple interactions within communities and the net effects of these on community structure and yield. In this study, we created two experimental grapevine communities in field cages, and quantified direct and indirect effects of key pest and disease species under simulated climate change conditions (elevated temperature and reduced humidity). We found that the net impact of simulated climate change on total yield differed for the two communities, with increased yield in one community and no effect in the other. These effects, and the interactions between pests and pathogens, may also have been affected by the prevailing abiotic conditions, and we discuss how these may contribute to our findings. These results demonstrate that future research should consider more of the interactions between key organisms affecting crops under varying abiotic conditions to help generate future recommendations for adapting to the effects of climate change.
Highlights
Climate change affects agriculture through a range of direct and indirect pathways [1, 2]
We found contrasting results in two experiments, with simulated warming having a negligible impact on crop yield in the first year, as well as a negative effect on the percentage of non-fungus-infected fruit, and a net positive impact in the second year
There were no strong direct effects of the four treatments on any of the yield measurements, but the climate treatment had an influence on the other organisms in the community, increasing powdery mildew cover and reducing both Botrytis bunch rot cover and the abundance of LBAM larvae
Summary
Climate change affects agriculture through a range of direct and indirect pathways [1, 2] These include direct changes in impacts of pests and diseases on crops [3], which may be mitigated indirectly by altered attack rates by natural enemies of the pest and insect vectors of fungal pathogens [4]. It remains unclear whether the net effects of these biotic influences will be beneficial or detrimental to crop yield [1, 5].
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