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Climate warming alters the structure of farmland tritrophic ecological networks and reduces crop yield

Stephane A P Derocles,D. Lunt,Sophie C. F. Berthe,Paul Nichols,Ellen Moss,D. Evans

Published 2018 in Molecular Ecology

ABSTRACT

It is unclear how sustained increases in temperature and changes in precipitation, as a result of climate change, will affect crops and their interactions with agricultural weeds, insect pests and predators, due to the difficulties in quantifying changes in such complex relationships. We simulated the combined effects of increasing temperature (by an average of 1.4°C over a growing season) and applying additional rainwater (10% of the monthly mean added weekly, 40% total) using a replicated, randomized block experiment within a wheat crop. We examined how this affected the structure of 24 quantitative replicate plant–aphid–parasitoid networks constructed using DNA‐based methods. Simulated climate warming affected species richness, significantly altered consumer–resource asymmetries and reduced network complexity. Increased temperature induced an aphid outbreak, but the parasitism rates of aphids by parasitoid wasps remained unchanged. It also drove changes in the crop, altering in particular the phenology of the wheat as well as its quality (i.e., fewer, lighter seeds). We discuss the importance of considering the wider impacts of climate change on interacting species across trophic levels in agroecosystems.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2018

  • Venue

    Molecular Ecology

  • Publication date

    2018-11-25

  • Fields of study

    Agricultural and Food Sciences, Medicine, Biology, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1111/mec.14903PMID 30346097
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar, PubMed

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