The potential impact of climate change on non-target risks from imported generalist natural enemies and on biological control

Abstract

Climate change creates opportunities and constraints for imported biological control agents, target pests, and non-target prey to modify their geographic distributions. However, predictions about how climate change will affect distributions of natural enemies and their hosts/prey cannot be made at present because of insufficient data about how species will respond to climate change, both directly and indirectly. Factors underlying the responses include tolerance to physical changes in the environment, dispersal ability, geography, and habitat requirements. Despite the limitations for making predictions, a review of the literature for imported generalist natural enemies indicates that climate change will result in range expansions or range shifts in some species, and that these changes are likely to increase non-target risks as well as influence the effectiveness of biological control programs. To better guide future decisions concerning importation biological control, additional field studies, experiments, and theoretical models are needed. Recommended actions include conducting surveys for non-target species in areas undergoing climate change, determining tolerances to changes in temperature and precipitation for natural enemies and hosts/prey, incorporating climate data into insect population models, and long-term assessments to document the impact of climate change on non-target species and efficacy of biological control programs. Because climate change will impact both target pests and non-target species, the work will be best-accomplished by grant-funded programs involving interdisciplinary teams of scientists.