Rapid evolution of insects to global environmental change: conceptual issues and empirical gaps

Abstract

Understanding how insects will respond both ecologically and evolutionarily to complex and interacting factors linked to global change is an important challenge that underpins our ability to produce better predictive models and to anticipate and manage ecosystem-scale disruption in the Anthropocene. Insects have the capacity to rapidly adapt to changing conditions via a variety of mechanisms which include both phenotypically plastic and evolutionary responses that interact in important ways. This short review comments on the current state of knowledge surrounding rapid evolution in insects and highlights conceptual and empirical gaps. Emphasis is placed on the need to consider direct and indirect community-level feedbacks via both ecological and evolutionary mechanisms when examining the consequences of global change, with particular focus on insects and their facultative and obligate symbionts.