Repellent semiochemical solutions to mitigate the impacts of global climate change on arthropod pests

Abstract

Rising global temperatures driven by anthropogenic carbon emissions are creating new challenges for food crop agriculture and forest management around the world. Droughts and other severe weather events are becoming more common and more extreme, causing both chronic stress and acute damage in cultivated and natural plant life, whereas warmer temperatures favor outbreaks of plant diseases and insect pests in many situations. At the same time, growing awareness of the health and environmental risks associated with broad-spectrum chemical pesticides has led crop growers and forest managers to seek out more selective, sustainable alternative techniques to mitigate the impact of harmful arthropods. Arthropod repellents have proven an efficacious strategy to reduce these impacts in the field of public health, where they are a key tactic in the suppression of diseases transmitted by hematophagous arthropods, but repellents are comparatively rarely employed to manage pests of agriculture and forestry. This chapter describes several cases in which repellents using beetle semiochemicals antiaggregation pheromones have been developed and evaluated in the field by the authors, successfully reducing tree mortality and/or crop damage induced by coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampeiFerrari) in Arabica coffee (Coffea arabicaL.); by aggressive Dendroctonusbark beetles in single trees and small stands of North American forest species; and by ambrosia beetles on apple and avocado crops, as well as southeastern forest species.

Citation

Mafra-Neto, Agenor; Wright, Mark; Fettig, Christopher; Progar, Robert; Musnon, Steve; Blackford, Darren; Moan, Jason; Graham, Elizabeth; Foote, Gabe; Borges, Rafael; Silva, Rodrigo; Lake, Revilee; Bernardi, Carmem; Saroli, Jesse; Clarke, Stephen; Meeker, James; Nowak, John; Agnello, Arthur; Martini, Xavier;  Rivera, Monique J.; Stelinski, Lukasz L. 2022. Repellent semiochemical solutions to mitigate the impacts of global climate change on arthropod pests. In: Corona, Caleb.; Debboun, Mustapha.; Coats, Joel, eds. Advances in Arthropod Repellents. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press: 279-322. Chapter 15. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-85411-5.00010-8