Global warming promotes biological invasion of a honey bee pest ...

• Main Authors: Cornelissen, Bram, Neumann, Peter, Schweiger, Oliver
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bern 2019
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7892/boris.142068; https://boris.unibe.ch/142068/

Climate change and biological invasions are two major global environmental challenges. Both may interact, e.g. via altered impact and distribution of invasive alien species. Even though invasive species play a key role for compromising the health of honey bees, the impact of climate change on the severity of such species is still unknown. The small hive beetle (SHB, Aethina tumida, Murray) is a parasite of honey bee colonies. It is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and has established populations on all continents except Antarctica. Since SHBs pupate in soil, pupation performance is governed foremost by two abiotic factors, soil temperature and moisture, which will be affected by climate change. Here, we investigated SHB invasion risk globally under current and future climate scenarios. We modelled survival and development time during pupation (=pupal performance) in response to soil temperature and soil moisture using published and novel experimental data. Presence data on SHB distribution were used for model ...