(ORDO NEWS) — Climate change is dangerous because it is difficult to calculate all its consequences, especially those that are not obvious at first glance.
European scientists warned about one of the upcoming problems little known to a wide range of people. Every year, due to global warming, the range of pest beetles is shifting to the north, and the number of insects is increasing.
The large spruce bark beetle ( Ips typographus ) is a well-studied insect that is common in the coniferous forests of Eurasia.
This beetle spends most of its life cycle in wood, gnawing long passages under the bark of fir trees. Along the way, the larvae and pupae of the insect disrupt the movement of nutrients up the trunk, which provokes the death of the plant.
Normally, bark beetles-typographers settle on diseased or completely dead trees. However, if the year is especially dry and warm, the beetles manage to breed twice as many offspring during the season, and the survival rate of the larvae is better.
It turns out that an abnormally high number of insects grows up to sexual maturity the next year. Then they begin to attack not only weakened plants, but also quite healthy ones: competition for food is high, one has to take on difficult prey.
Such bursts of numbers were in Russia after the abnormally hot summer of 2010, the epidemic continued until 2014.
In Northern Europe, an increase in the number of large spruce bark beetles has been recorded continuously since 2018, and the warm summer of 2021 turned into an almost catastrophic situation a season later.
Although the situation is still under control, Finnish natural resources experts warn that in the future the epidemic will take over all northern European coniferous forests.
Warm and dry summers lead to the fertility of beetles, mild winters protect their pupae, and the next year, insects that begin to breed produce even more offspring.
And this wave of pests is moving smoothly north and north. If in the past decades typographic bark beetles were rare in southern Finland, since 2018 they have become a constant threat to coniferous forests.
There are protection measures against typographer bark beetles, but they require constant forest care. It is necessary to eliminate diseased, weakened and dead trees, and this is done before the start of the beetle breeding season.
After it begins, it is necessary to clean from the bark those plants that already have traces of pest settlement – this is how their life cycle is disrupted, and the larvae die. Finally, baits work well, that is, specially decomposed dead trees, which are burned after infestation by beetles.
All this is easy to do if there is a developed system of monitoring forestry and forestry. Even in the presence of such services, as Finnish scientists note, at some point the number of beetles will exceed all reasonable limits, and the needles are in danger of dying out.
It is worth noting that the northern European forests will most likely die out in their current range and, as a result of global warming, will shift northward, where the tundra is now. This process is well known from the global climate changes that took place earlier on Earth.
Bark beetles will also move further north, where annual temperatures will limit their reproduction to their former values. And Finland and other countries of Northern Europe will be occupied by mixed or deciduous forests typical.
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