Abstract:

Insects, as a group of ectotherm animals, are extraordinarily susceptible to heat stress. Exploring the effects of heat stress on herbivorous insects can provide an important theoretical basis for monitoring the population dynamics of agricultural and forestry insect pests and predicting potential changes in their geographical distributions under the background of climate warming. From the aspects of individuals, interspecific interaction, populations and communities, we reviewed the research progress of the impacts of heat stress on herbivorous insects. Heat stress has negative effects on the growth, development, reproduction, physiology and biochemistry of herbivorous insects, which has evolved a series of strategies responding to heat stress by modifying morphology, behavior and related gene expression. The effects of heat stress on host plants, natural enemies and symbiotic microorganisms can also be transmitted to herbivorous insects through interspecific interactions, resulting in changes in the tertiary trophic relationships among host plants, herbivorous insects and natural enemies. Meanwhile, heat stress can also indirectly affect herbivorous insects’ population dynamics as well as their diversities and ecological functions in the natural communities, by influencing insect individuals and their interspecific interactions with other organisms, which may lead to large outbreaks or declines in the populations of herbivorous insects. Finally, the future research directions in this field are as follows: from the individual perspective, the treatment mode of high-temperature stress should be optimized, and environmental factors such as drought and precipitation should be comprehensively considered; long-term field monitoring of agricultural and forestry pest populations should be performed, and the influence of high temperature stress on the genes of insect participation in growth, development, and reproduction should be studied; at the interspecific relationship level, attention should be paid to the effects of high temperature stress on the complex and diverse food webs or intercroprising systems associated with insects; in addition, the effects of high temperature stress on the physiological characteristics and behavioral patterns of various insect species should be combined to determine the effects of elevated temperatures on insect communities.

Key words: high temperature stress, herbivorous insects, interspecific interaction, population dynamics