User:LaminatePizza9/Insects and Climate Change

= Insects being Affected by Climate Change = Insects have more species than both plants and animal making them the one of the most diverse species. This diversity of insects makes them very important to life on Earth. Multiple studies are showing that insects are being affected by climate change. There are fluctuations in insect population with it both increasing and decreasing. There are more species decreasing than increasing. It is also speculated that the insect behavior may change due to climate change. This change is unknown and is very hard to predict. Many assumptions have been made based on evidence, but what these changes are will never be known for certain until they happen.

Insects and the Food chain
Insects are very important to the food chain. If they decline in population it could have some huge affects on humans. There are people that still rely on the insects for food, such as grasshoppers and grubs. They are provide a good quick source of food, and can be found in large quantiles. If the population were to be affected, then the peoples from areas that largely depend on insects would have to find a solution to this food loss.

Insects and Culture
Insects also are present in many cultures. The scarab beetle was sacred to the ancient Egyptians. They saw the beetle rolling their ball of dung in the night and connected that to how it must roll the sun across the underworld. This is not the only case where insects are present in culture. The mantis, cicada, moth, and flies are all important as well.

Insects and Science
Insects are important in scientific research. There is the study of insects, but insects have a laboratory trait to them. Fruit flies are favored among all the insects because of how easy they are to obtain, reproduce and experiment with. Many experiments have been conducted and have provided insight on various topics, such as Thomas Hunt Morgan's "Sex Limited Inheritance in Drosophila" experiment. Repeatedly they have been important to humans and our research. They are not only helpful in research fields, but in medical fields. There have been drugs that due to insects, like cantharides, which came from the blister beetles. Even maggots were used for medical purposes. In World War 1 maggots were used to clean wounds because it was found that infections were uncommon when there were maggots in the wound. If insects were to change behavior, scientists would have to change the way of handling fruit flies or other insects in the lab. It may become a detriment to conduct experiments on insects. The population change could be bad as well because it would make it harder to get insects to experiment on, and so it would cause many people to start breeding insects solely for the purpose of experimentation.

Insects and Pets
Insects are a pet that many people have. The most popular are ants, stick bugs, and tarantulas. These insects rely on other insects as food. If the population of the insects were to be affected it would make having these pets very difficult. Insects are not the only ones that need insects to survive. Pets such as chameleons and frogs rely on insects to survive as well. If the behavior of the insects changes, it would make it more difficult for the pet to catch the insect.

Insects and Animals
Insects are low on the food chain, so there are many predators that are dependent on these insects. If their behavior changes, their predators may not be able to adapt fast enough, which will make that species of insect have a greater population. This could affect many things that are not really known just yet because it has not happened, and there has not been that much research that delves into what would happen. If their population decreases, again their predators will be affected. There is proof that once the prey has been decreasing in population, the predator population also decreases. This then makes it so the prey population goes back up again, which increases the predator population. This cycle would continue indefinitely if no outside interference happens. This could be wat is happening to the insect population and it is just being learned about, but this is unlikely. If the insect population does decrease and does not recover, the predator population will also decrease and there would a domino effect that goes up the food chain. The effects are not yet known.

Outbreaks
There are many things uncertain about insect outbreaks; specifically what causes them to happen. Insect outbreaks are different for each type of insect. There have been multiple case studies that led to the conclusion that the environmental and ecological conditions are the main factors to outbreaks. They usually happen in warm weather and whenever a large amount of precipitation occurs, or no precipitation occurs. This does not mean that they cannot happen in cold weather. If the climate change favors the conditions that outbreaks favor, outbreaks may be more common. It is unknown if they will occur more due to the uncertainty of what causes insect outbreaks, but it is believed that there will be more outbreaks. If there are more outbreaks, then the environmental damage would be immense.

There have been examples of insect outbreaks that have caused a lot of damage to agriculture, like the locust outbreaks in East Africa. These locusts swarms go across land and devour any plant that is in its way, which feeds the swarm and allows it to continue along.

Insects and Trees
There are many different types of insects that have an impact on trees. In the Northeast United States, there have been reports of Spotted Lanternflies which are invasive. Now climate change may not be the reason for these bugs appearing, as someone could have brought them over, but the climate change can encourage growth of these invasive populations which already do enough damage. In Hawaii, there is the rhinoceros beetle that has a major impact on the trees in Hawaii.