Giving Them a Fighting Chance: How To Save Insects from Climate Change

Insects, as small as they are, are even more important than you may think. Sadly, climate change and warming are slowly depleting insect populations as our urban spaces grow and the use of pesticides in rural areas increases. Actions like planting native plants and decreasing the concentration of concrete-sealed spaces could help create a world where insects are more resilient to the changing environment.

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When Pests Infest – A new tool for identifying at-risk forests

Forests globally are facing threats from insect and pathogen outbreaks. In this battle, drought and unsustainable logging have weakened forests, making them more vulnerable to attacks by insects and pathogens. Luckily, scientists joined the fight and have developed a tool to help identify forests that are at risk. Still, the world’s forests are not out of the woods yet.

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Resetting the Internal Clock: Adaptable Butterflies’ Response to Climate Warming

As the climate warms, habitats near the poles are becoming increasingly hospitable for many plants, animals, and insects. But it remains uncertain whether species’ range expansions might eventually be hindered by differences in daylength at higher latitudes. Wall brown butterflies are making the journey northwards from Europe in response to climate warming. How do differences in daylength at higher latitudes affect them, and what can they do to survive in these new conditions?

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Matriarch Madness: Mechanism of Social Parasitism and Colony Takeover in Ants

Carpenter ants play an important role in an ecosystem; they break down wood into smaller pieces that will ultimately become part of the soil. But a parasitic ant can rapidly take over and destroy a colony by simply disguising herself through chemical means.

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Increasing Temperatures and Decreasing Insect Populations

Without insects, we wouldn’t have all of the edible plants that we rely on as important parts of our diets and entire ecosystems would be in trouble. Despite their importance, insects face many threats, including climate change. Through a literature review, a group of scientists found that increasing temperatures due to climate change and the resulting ecosystem changes are a leading cause of insect population declines globally. Some species have disappeared completely. However, different species respond to climate change differently. Monitoring and understanding their responses can help us prevent their loss.

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Dead and Gone? – The loss of decaying wood communities in urban forests

Forests are beautiful. From flourishing plants to tranquil wildlife to decaying logs, all parts are beautiful, vital, and connected. Dead logs are responsible for maintaining a healthy forest thanks to teams of fungi and wood-dependent insects inside. These organisms break down plant material to add nutrients back to the ecosystem. Forests are essential for human health and well-being, but human disturbance could threaten these ecosystems. To keep our forests healthy and beautiful, we depend on these decomposers, but can they rely on us?

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Moving into the Hyporheic Zone

Climate change is causing some alpine streams to change from always flowing to flowing only part of the time. This is a challenge that the bugs in those streams have not had to face, but the might have a way out: hunkering down in the hyporheic zone, a subsurface component of the stream. By waiting out drought in this new environment, the bugs might be able to come back and resume life as normal when conditions are more favorable.

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