Insects hungry in the heat

With temperatures going up as the climate warms, the hungry caterpillars could get even hungrier, and more abundant. Crop losses to pests may grow – Világgazdaság Online wrote after Science.

Insects will be “eating more of our lunch,” says Curtis Deutsch of the University of Washington in Seattle. Based on how heat revs up insect metabolism and reproduction, he and his colleagues estimate that each degree Celsius of warming temperatures means an extra 10 to 25 percent of damage to wheat, maize and rice. Their prediction appears in the new issue of Science. (vg.hu)