Response of insect parasitism to elevation depends on host and parasitoid life-history strategies
PERE, Christelle
Biodiversité, Gènes & Communautés [BioGeCo]
Centre for Agricultural and Biosciences International [CABI]
Biodiversité, Gènes & Communautés [BioGeCo]
Centre for Agricultural and Biosciences International [CABI]
PERE, Christelle
Biodiversité, Gènes & Communautés [BioGeCo]
Centre for Agricultural and Biosciences International [CABI]
< Reduce
Biodiversité, Gènes & Communautés [BioGeCo]
Centre for Agricultural and Biosciences International [CABI]
Language
en
Article de revue
This item was published in
Biology Letters. 2013, vol. 9, n° 4
Royal Society, The
English Abstract
How global warming will affect insect parasitoids and their role as natural enemies of insect pests is difficult to assess within a short period of time. Considering that elevation gradients can be used as analogues for ...Read more >
How global warming will affect insect parasitoids and their role as natural enemies of insect pests is difficult to assess within a short period of time. Considering that elevation gradients can be used as analogues for global warming, we carried out meta-analyses of 27 correlations between parasitoid richness and elevation and 140 correlations between parasitism rate and elevation in natural and semi-natural environments. We also explored various covariates that may explain the observed responses. Both parasitism rates and parasitoid species richness significantly decreased with increasing elevation. The decrease was greater for ectoparasitoids and parasitoids of ectophagous insects than for endoparasitoids and parasitoids of endophagous hosts, possibly because these latter are better protected from adverse and extreme climatic conditions occurring at higher elevations. Although our results suggest an increase of parasitism with increasing temperature, other factors regulating herbivorous insects have to be considered before concluding that climate warming will lead to a decrease in pest density.Read less <
English Keywords
parasitoids; elevation gradient; global warming; meta-analysis
Origin
Hal imported