Abstract:
Global change brings about a number of new challenges to insects. Urbanisation and
landscape transformation, increasing temperatures, and frequent droughts will not only
affect the species itself but also has knock-on effects throughout the trophic levels of a
network. Plants might flower earlier and leave the previously default pollinator in a
situation where it must look for a suitable alternative or starve. Long cold weather periods
in spring after an early onset of flowering might starve both solitary and social insects in the
beginning of the season. The increasing human food demand is resulting in agricultural
intensification and an increase in monocultures, thereby reducing the diversity of floral
nectar and pollen (1). Predatory and herbivore insects are similarly affected, with their
favourite diet becoming desynchronised from their phenology, either temporally or
spatially, due to changes in land use and the loss in connectivity linking favourable habitats.
Description:
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION : All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and
intellectual contribution to the work and approved it
for publication.
