Pests and diseases threatening urban trees under a changing climate

Climate-related Transboundary Pests and Diseases

Global trade, both in variety and quantities of goods moved, is increasing year by year. For example,WTO statistics indicate that between 2000 and 2005, global sea and air freight rose by around 20percent with volumes now exceeding 7 billion tons per year. Trends in eco-climatic variables underdifferent climate change scenarios also show marked differences in key drivers such as tem...

Estimating forest net primary production under changing climate: adding pests into the equation.

The current approach to modelling pest impacts on forest net primary production (NPP) is to apply a constant modifier. This does not capture the large spatial and temporal variability in pest abundance and activity that can occur, meaning that overestimates or underestimates of pest impacts on forest NPP are likely. Taking a more mechanistic approach that incorporates an understanding of how ph...

Mapping Conservation Strategies under a Changing Climate

Modelling olive trees and grapevines in a changing climate

The models developed for simulating olive tree and grapevine yields were reviewed by focussing on the major limitations of these models for their application in a changing climate. Empirical models, which exploit the statistical relationship between climate and yield, and process based models, where crop behaviour is defined by a range of relationships describing the main plant processes, were ...

Arthropod Pests and Plant Diseases

Research has concluded that global warming will likely increase abundance and occurrence of insect pests and plant diseases in agricultural systems. Most of the evidence cited for this increase is based on either empirically derived information, simulation models developed from laboratory observations and/or environmental extremes that resulted in pest outbreaks. While these phenomena can help ...