Scientists are issuing a serious warning after making a profound observation in the behavior of insects.
What's happening?
Researchers at St. Louis University have been examining the thermoregulatory tendencies in insects that live in plants, specifically treehoppers. They've discovered that while these insects can survive in a wide variety of temperatures, the range of temperatures in which they can reproduce is fairly small.
Treehoppers studied only engaged in behavior to regulate their internal body temperature when the external temperature exceeded 36 degrees Celsius (or 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit). And since the temperature on trees can vary by up to 19 degrees Celsius, depending on whether they're in the sun or the shade, this means the insects only engage in temperature-regulating behaviors to survive, but not to reproduce.
Why is insect temperature regulation important?
Lead researcher Kasey Fowler-Finn explained that insects only thermoregulating to survive could have profound implications as our climate warms up.
"With how variable the climate is, the fact that they're not able to thermoregulate to maximize reproduction is a major discovery," Fowler-Finn said in the summary. "Climate change is restricting the temperatures that are good for mating to occur, which means they're going to have restricted time periods for mating as well. This could cause a shift in their mating patterns, and reproductive rates are really important for population persistence."
In other words, as the climate on the planet gets hotter, the insects will have less and less time in which they're able to reproduce, which would limit the number of new insects created. And with fewer insects to feed on, their reduced numbers could have a cascade effect across multiple other species, causing a potential catastrophe.
"When insect populations start to crash, we're going to have a hard time with all sorts of other animal populations that rely on insects for food," Fowler-Finn said.
What's being done about insect reproduction?
For their part, Fowler-Finn and her team are continuing to research the topic of treehopper reproduction to figure out how much of an impact our changing climate has on the insects.
"That's what we're going to examine next, figuring out impacts of temperature on reproductive output and modeling and projecting responses to climate change," she said.
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Research partner Noah Leith said the research could be crucial to conservation efforts.
"We need to have a more intricate understanding of the organisms we're trying to protect, and understand how their behaviors are tied to temperature," Leith said. "By understanding their really unique behaviors, we can then hopefully learn how they'll react to climate change. Understanding those behaviors, rather than looking at broad survival rates, could be the key for population persistence."
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