Global warming

Climate change

Yield (engineering)

Crop

Sociology

Insect

Population

Agronomy

Temperate climate

Biology

Agriculture

Crop yield

Demography

Ecology

Metallurgy

Materials science

Environmental science

Science

Insect pests substantially reduce yields of three staple grains-rice, maize, and wheat-but models assessing the agricultural impacts of global warming rarely consider crop losses to insects. We use established relationships between temperature and the population growth and metabolic rates of insects to estimate how and where climate warming will augment losses of rice, maize, and wheat to insects. Global yield losses of these grains are projected to increase by 10 to 25% per degree of global mean surface warming. Crop losses will be most acute in areas where warming increases both population growth and metabolic rates of insects. These conditions are centered primarily in temperate regions, where most grain is produced.

Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate