Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Crop pests and pathogens move polewards in a warming world

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages 985–988 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Global food security is threatened by the emergence and spread of crop pests and pathogens. Spread is facilitated primarily by human transportation, but there is increasing concern that climate change allows establishment in hitherto unsuitable regions. However, interactions between climate change, crops and pests are complex, and the extent to which crop pests and pathogens have altered their latitudinal ranges in response to global warming is largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate an average poleward shift of 2.7±0.8 km yr−1 since 1960, in observations of hundreds of pests and pathogens, but with significant variation in trends among taxonomic groups. Observational bias, where developed countries at high latitudes detect pests earlier than developing countries at low latitudes, would result in an apparent shift towards the Equator. The observed positive latitudinal trends in many taxa support the hypothesis of global warming-driven pest movement.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Latitudinal range versus longitudinal range.
Figure 2: Latitude versus year of earliest observation for all pests, in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Figure 3: Latitude versus year of observation for pest taxonomic groups in the Northern Hemisphere from 1960 onwards.
Figure 4: Mean latitudinal shift (km yr−1) for pest taxonomic groups in the Northern Hemisphere for all years, and for 1960 onwards.

References

  1. Flood, J. The importance of plant health to food security. Food Secur. 2, 215–231 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Fisher, M. C. et al. Emerging fungal threats to animal, plant and ecosystem health. Nature 484, 186–194 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Strange, R. N. & Scott, P. R. Plant disease: A threat to global food security. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 43, 83–116 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Oerke, E-C. Crop losses to pests. J. Agric. Sci. 144, 31–43 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Chakraborty, S. & Newton, A. C. Climate change, plant diseases and food security: An overview. Plant Pathol. 60, 2–14 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Anderson, P. K. et al. Emerging infectious diseases of plants: Pathogen pollution, climate change and agrotechnology drivers. Trends Ecol. Evol. 19, 535–544 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Stukenbrock, E. H. & McDonald, B. A. The origins of plant pathogens in agro-ecosystems. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 46, 75–100 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Brown, J. K. M. & Hovmøller, M. S. Aerial dispersal of pathogens on the global and continental scales and its impact on plant disease. Science 297, 537–541 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Singh, R. P. et al. The Emergence of Ug99 races of the stem rust fungus is a threat to world wheat production. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 49, 465–481 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Hovmøller, M. S., Yahyaoui, A. H., Milus, E. A. & Justesen, A. F. Rapid global spread of two aggressive strains of a wheat rust fungus. Mol. Ecol. 17, 3818–3826 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Cooke, D. E. L. et al. Genome analyses of an aggressive and invasive lineage of the Irish potato famine pathogen. PLoS Pathog. 8, e1002940 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Koricheva, J., Larsson, S. & Haukioja, E. Insect performance on experimentally stressed woody plants: a meta-analysis. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 43, 195–216 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Bale, J. S. et al. Herbivory in global climate change research: direct effects of rising temperature on insect herbivores. Glob. Change Biol. 8, 1–16 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Woods, A. Is the health of British Columbia’s forests being influenced by climate change? If so, was this predictable? Can. J. Plant Pathol. 33, 117–126 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Mauch-Mani, B. & Mauch, F. The role of abscisic acid in plant–pathogen interactions. Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 8, 409–414 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Huber, L. & Gillespie, T. J. Modeling leaf wetness in relation to plant disease epidemiology. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 30, 553–577 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Garrett, K. A., Dendy, S. P., Frank, E. E., Rouse, M. N. & Travers, S. E. Climate change effects on plant disease: genomes to ecosystems. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 44, 489–509 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Gregory, P. J., Johnson, S. N., Newton, A. C. & Ingram, J. S. I. Integrating pests and pathogens into the climate change/food security debate. J. Exp. Bot. 60, 2827–2838 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Shaw, M. W. & Osborne, T. M. Geographic distribution of plant pathogens in response to climate change. Plant Pathol. 60, 31–43 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Parmesan, C. & Yohe, G. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature 421, 37–42 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Burrows, M. T. et al. The pace of shifting climate in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Science 334, 652–655 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Chen, I-C., Hill, J. K., Ohlemüller, R., Roy, D. B. & Thomas, C. D. Rapid range shifts of species associated with high levels of climate warming. Science 333, 1024–1026 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Furman, J. L., Porter, M. E. & Stern, S. The determinants of national innovative capacity. Res. Policy 31, 899–933 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Devictor, V. et al. Differences in the climatic debts of birds and butterflies at a continental scale. Nature Clim. Change 2, 121–124 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Hoegh-Guldberg, O. et al. Assisted colonization and rapid climate change. Science 321, 345–346 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Reilly, J. et al. US agriculture and climate change: New results. Climatic Change 57, 43–67 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Clavero, M., Villero, D. & Brotons, L. Climate change or land use dynamics: Do we know what climate change indicators indicate? PLoS ONE 6, e18581 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Schmidhuber, J. & Tubiello, F. N. Global food security under climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 19703–19708 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Lobell, D. B. et al. Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030. Science 319, 607–610 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Pasiecznik, N. M. et al. CABI/EPPO distribution maps of plant pests and plant diseases and their important role in plant quarantine. Eppo Bull. 35, 1–7 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Earthwatch and the HSBC Climate Partnership for financially supporting D.P.B.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QD, UK

    Daniel P. Bebber & Sarah J. Gurr

  2. Christ Church College, University of Oxford, St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1DP, UK

    Mark A. T. Ramotowski

Authors
  1. Daniel P. Bebber
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mark A. T. Ramotowski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sarah J. Gurr
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.A.T.R. collected the data, D.P.B. analysed the data and following discussion with S.J.G., D.P.B. and S.J.G. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah J. Gurr.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bebber, D., Ramotowski, M. & Gurr, S. Crop pests and pathogens move polewards in a warming world. Nature Clim Change 3, 985–988 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1990

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1990

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing