Climate change drives reduced biocontrol of the invasive spongy moth

Jiawei Liu, Colin Kyle, Jiali Wang, Rao Kotamarthi, William Koval, Vanja Dukic and Greg Dwyer ()
Additional contact information
Jiawei Liu: University of Chicago
Colin Kyle: University of Chicago
Jiali Wang: Argonne National Laboratory
Rao Kotamarthi: Argonne National Laboratory
William Koval: University of Chicago
Vanja Dukic: University of Colorado
Greg Dwyer: University of Chicago

Nature Climate Change, 2025, vol. 15, issue 2, 210-217

Abstract: Abstract The effects of climate change on forest-defoliating insects are poorly understood, but could severely reduce forest productivity, biodiversity and timber production. For decades following its introduction in 1869, the spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) severely defoliated North American forests, but the introduction of the fungal pathogen Entomophaga maimaiga in 1989 suppressed spongy moth defoliation for 27 years. E. maimaiga, however, needs cool, moist conditions, whereas climate change is bringing hot, dry conditions to the range of the insect. Here we use an empirically verified eco-climate model to project that climate change will sharply reduce E. maimaiga infection rates, thereby increasing spongy moth defoliation. Recent rebounds in defoliation are consistent with our projections. Our work demonstrates that the effects of climate change on species interactions can have important consequences for natural ecosystems.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02204-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:15:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1038_s41558-024-02204-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02204-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().