Impact of Climate Change on Arthropod Diversity
Today, understanding the consequences of changes in biological diversity due to global warming has become critically important. Climate change has profound influence on arthropod diversity. Principal effects of climate change on arthropod diversity includ
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Impact of Climate Change on Arthropod Diversity N.R. Prasannakumar and K.P. Kumar
Abstract
Today, understanding the consequences of changes in biological diversity due to global warming has become critically important. Climate change has profound influence on arthropod diversity. Principal effects of climate change on arthropod diversity include decrease in decomposers and predators and parasites and increased herbivory which affects the structure and function of ecosystems. With changes in arthropod communities, farmers are experiencing decreases in soil fertility and crop productivity. Amelioration includes organic farming, cultivation of climate-resilient crops, the use of water energy, wind energy, maintaining water bodies, reducing vehicular emissions, etc. Keywords
Arthropod diversity • Climate change • Global warming
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Introduction
Diversity of arthropods is defined as the existing variations within the arthropod communities from all the sources such as, inter alia, terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems. It also includes ecological interactions, within and between
N.R. Prasannakumar (*) Division of Entomology and Nematology, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Hessarghatta, Bengaluru 560089, Karnataka, India e-mail: [email protected] K.P. Kumar Department of Entomology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru 560065, Karnataka, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 A.K. Chakravarthy, S. Sridhara (eds.), Arthropod Diversity and Conservation in the Tropics and Sub-tropics, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1518-2_1
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N.R. Prasannakumar and K.P. Kumar
species and ecosystems (Mandal and Neenu 2012). Arthropods not only have a wide range of diversified ecological roles in natural resources but also economic benefits in agriculture (Wilson 1987; Isaacs et al. 2009). Their diverse functions include as prey resources for many taxa, as important predators, and as pollinators and seed dispersers (Bond and Slingsby 1984; Wilson 1987; Isaacs et al. 2009). Arthropods are also important for decomposition and nutrient cycling, creating nutrient-rich fertile soils for plants, community interactions, and food webs (Wilson 1987; Losey and Vaughan 2006; Seastedt and Crossley 1984). Climate change, a current global concern, may be due to natural phenomenon or as a result of anthropogenic activity and exerts multitude of threats to all life forms. The Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2001) reported that increased anthropogenic activities have been responsible for global warming, which is being observed over the last five decades. Mean surface temperature rose by 0.6 ± 0.2 °C during the twentieth century all over the world. It has been predicted to increase by 1.4–5.8 °C from 1990 to 2100. The possible consequences of global warming would not only be raised temperature but more crucially the rate of temperature raise (Root and Schneider 1993). Besides, increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the precipitation patterns are lik
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