Climate change causing 60% of plants and insects to fall out of synch

Climate change causing 60% of plants and insects to fall out of synch - British Ecological Society

an orange butterfly on a purple flower — The dark green fritillary is struggling to keep up with the advancing phenology of plants that the caterpillar stage relies on, such as dog-violet and marsh violet. Credit: Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons.

Seasonal timings of plants are advancing an average of four times faster than insects, throwing key interactions like pollination out of synch. This is according to new findings from researchers at the University of Oxford and Chinese Academy of Sciences that will be presented at the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting in Belfast.

A study of over 1,500 species of herbivorous insects in Europe, spanning 34 years of data, has found that 60% of insects are already struggling to keep up with the plants they rely on because climate change is advancing key seasonal timings (phenology), such as plant blooming or insect emergence, earlier in the year, at different rates.

As climate change intensifies, plants were found to be adjusting their seasonal timings four times faster than insects in response to changing environmental conditions.

Butterflies and moths are among the most sensitive group of insects to this mismatch in seasonal timings. For example, the dark green fritillary is struggling to keep up with the advancing phenology of plants that the caterpillar stage relies on, such as dog-violet and marsh violet.