Climate change and global warming are of great concern to agriculture worldwide and are among the most discussed issues in today’s society. Climate parameters such as increased temperatures, rising atmospheric CO2 levels, and changing precipitation patterns have significant impacts on agricultural production and on agricultural insect pests. Changes in climate can affect insect pests in several ways. They can result in an expansion of their geographic distribution, increased survival during overwintering, increased number of generations, altered synchrony between plants and pests, altered interspecific interaction, increased risk of invasion by migratory pests, increased incidence of insect-transmitted plant diseases, and reduced effectiveness of biological control, especially natural enemies. As a result, there is a serious risk of crop economic losses, as well as a challenge to human food security. As a major driver of pest population dynamics, climate change will require adaptive management strategies to deal with the changing status of pests. Several priorities can be identified for future research on the effects of climatic changes on agricultural insect pests. These include modified integrated pest management tactics, monitoring climate and pest populations, and the use of modelling prediction tools.

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), in contrast with other asymmetries, is the bilateral asymmetry that represents small, random developmental differences between right and left sides. After nearly a century of using traditional morphometrics in the estimation of FA, geometric morphometrics (GM) now provides new insights into the use of FA as a tool, especially for assessing environmental and developmental stress. Thus, it will be possible to assess adaptation to various environmental stressors as particular triggers for unavoidable selection pressures. In this review, we describe measures of FA that use geometric morphometrics, and we include a flow chart of the methodology. We also describe how this combination (GM + FA) has been tested in several agroecosystems. Nutritional stress, temperature, chemical pollution, and population density are known stressors experienced by populations in agroecosystems.

The codling moth, Cydia pomonella L., is a serious insect pest in pome fruit production worldwide with a preference for apple. The pest is known for having developed resistance to several chemical groups of insecticides, making its control difficult. The control and management of the codling moth is often hindered by a lack of understanding about its biology and ecology, including aspects of its population genetics. This review summarizes the information about the origin and biology of the codling moth, describes the mechanisms of resistance in this pest, and provides an overview of current research of resistant pest populations and genetic research both in Europe and globally. The main focus of this review is on non-pesticide control measures and anti-resistance strategies which help to reduce the number of chemical pesticides used and their residues on food and the local environment. Regular monitoring for insecticide resistance is essential for proactive management to mitigate potential insecticide resistance. Here we describe techniques for the detection of resistant variants and possibilities for monitoring resistance populations. Also, we present our present work on developing new methods to maintain effective control using appropriate integrated resistance management (IRM) strategies for this economically important perennial pest.

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Climate change and invasive species are major environmental issues facing the world today. They represent the major threats for various types of ecosystems worldwide, mainly managed ecosystems such as agriculture. This study aims to examine the link between climate change and the biological invasion of insect pest species. Increased international trade systems and human mobility have led to increasing introduction rates of invasive insects while climate change could decrease barriers for their establishment and distribution. To mitigate environmental and economic damage it is important to understand the biotic and abiotic factors affecting the process of invasion (transport, introduction, establishment, and dispersal) in terms of climate change. We highlight the major biotic factors affecting the biological invasion process: diet breadth, phenological plasticity, and lifecycle strategies. Finally, we present alien insect pest invasion management that includes prevention, eradication, and assessment of the biological invasion in the form of modelling prediction tools.