Whether curse or blessing: A counterintuitive perspective on global pest thrips infestation under climatic change with implications to agricultural economics

The improvement and application of pest models to predict yield losses is still a challenge for the scientific community. However, pest models were targeted chiefly towards scheduling scouting or pesticide applications to deal with pest in-festation. Thysanoptera (thrips) significantly impact the productivity of many economically important crops world-wide. Until now, no comprehensive study is available on the global distribution of pest thrips, as well as on the extent of cropland vulnerability worldwide. Further, nothing is known about the climate change impacts on these in-sects. Thus the present study was designed to map the global distribution and quantify the extent of cropland vulner-ability in the present and future climate scenarios using data of identified pest thrips within the genus, i.e., Thrips, Frankliniella, and Scirtothrips. Our found significant niche contraction under the climate change scenarios and thrips may reside primarily in their thermal tolerance thresholds. About 3,98,160 km2 of cropland globally was found to be affected in the present scenario. However, it may significantly reduce to 5530 Km2 by 2050 and 1990 km2 by 2070. Further, the thrips distribution mostly getting restricted to Eastern North America, the North-western of the Indian sub-continent, and the north of Europe. Among all realms, thrips may lose ground in the Indo-Malayan realm at the most and get restricted to only 27 out of 825 terrestrial ecoregions. The agrarian communities of the infested regions may get benefit if these pests get wiped out, but on the contrary, we may lose species diversity. Moreover, the vacated niche may attract other invasive species, which may seriously impact the species composition and agricul-tural productivity. The present study findings can be used in making informed decisions about prioritizing future economic and research investments on the thrips in light of anticipated climate change impacts.

Automated summary

This study aims to map the global distribution and quantify the vulnerability of cropland under current and future climate scenarios due to pest thrips. The results show that climate change will lead to niche contraction of thrips, primarily in Eastern North America, the North-western part of the Indian sub-continent, and the north of Europe. Additionally, the Indo-Malayan realm may lose most of its thrips habitat, being restricted to only 27 out of 825 terrestrial ecoregions. These findings can inform decision-making regarding future economic and research investments on thrips in light of anticipated climate change impacts.