Abstract
Abstract Migratory insect pests pose a substantial challenge to global food security. These issues are particularly acute when pest incursions occur considerably beyond the expected range, through natural migration or human‐aided transport, because the lack of species‐specific control strategies and a potential absence of species‐specific natural enemies in the newly‐invaded area may lead to rapid establishment of a new pest. One such threat is posed by the Oriental migratory locust Locusta migratoria manilensis in China, which, historically, has been restricted to eastern China from the Bohai Gulf southwards, and now threatens to expand its range into the agriculturally important region of northeast China. We analyzed data from a recent outbreak of migratory locusts in Heilongjiang Province (extreme northeast China), > 700 km north of its current known range, and identified the source region, timing of arrival and probable migratory routes of this incursion. We further show that warming temperatures in this region will likely allow subsequent invasions to establish permanent populations in northeast China, and thus authorities in this important crop‐producing region of East Asia should be vigilant to the threat posed by this species.
Highlights
Migratory insect pests constitute serious threats to food security because their shared traits of great fecundity, high mobility and broad host plant range (Chapman et al, 2015) make them prone to outbreaks that are difficult to predict
Temperature suitability for locust development and population growth rate Between 2004 and 2009, DD values at both Longjiang County (LJ) and Zhaoyuan County (ZY) typically hovered around the limit required for the complete development of a generation of L. migratoria (Fig. 2), they were sometimes well below the limit (e.g. 2006 at LJ) and occasionally exceeded it (e.g. 2007 at LJ)
The only adults present are to be found in southernmost China (Fig. 1 and Table 2), approximately 3500 km away, an implausible distance to have been traversed by natural migration; the immigration would have had to have been implausibly large to produce the numbers observed in the summer of 2009
Summary
Migratory insect pests constitute serious threats to food security because their shared traits of great fecundity, high mobility and broad host plant range (Chapman et al, 2015) make them prone to outbreaks that are difficult to predict. It is necessary to understand their annual migration patterns to develop effective management strategies (Wu et al, 2018; Hu et al, 2019) These challenges are exacerbated when migratory pests appear in new areas, either through natural expansion beyond historical ranges in response to climate change (Bebber et al, 2013) or through incursions (often human aided) into completely new and distant regions (Tay et al, 2013, 2017; Jones et al, 2019). It is important to remain vigilant to the threat of emerging pests and the rapid determination of new incursions is imperative if adequate crop protection measures are to be implemented (Tay et al, 2013)
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