Estimating the Potential of Insects from Warmer Regions to Overwinter in Colder Regions under a Warming Winter Scenario Using Simulation Experiments: A Case Study in Sesamia nonagrioides.

Simple Summary: Ongoing climate change is causing temperatures to rise in both summer and winter, allowing insect pests to invade new areas and potentially causing economic and human health problems. Low winter temperatures are thought to be one of the main barriers to the colonization of higher latitudes. Climate models predict that winter temperatures will increase more than summer temperatures in temperate regions, which may allow insects from warmer regions to colonize the colder, higher latitudes in the future. Understanding how climate change will affect insect distributions is critical for many areas of human activity. This paper presents a method to assess the potential of insects to colonize colder regions under a warming winter scenario. The method is based on exposing insects to laboratory simulations of a warming winter climate. The applicability of the method is tested using the example of a Mediterranean pest, Sesamia nonagrioides, whose ability to colonize Central Europe is assessed. The results indicate that S. nonagrioides could survive Central European winters even under the current state of warming or under a warmer climate predicted for the near future. The presented method may be particularly useful in pest management to estimate overwinter survival and distribution of pests due to climate change. Ongoing climate change and anthropogenic pressure are having a profound influence on insects, causing species diversity to decline and populations to shrink. Insect pests invade new areas and cause economic and human health problems. Low temperatures in winter are thought to be one of the main barriers to the successful colonization of higher latitudes. Climate models predict that winter temperatures will increase more than summer temperatures in temperate and polar regions, potentially allowing species from warmer climates to colonize higher latitudes. Understanding how climate change will affect the distribution of insects is critical to many areas of human activity. One possible but seldom used way to predict likely range shifts of insects due to climate change is through simulation experiments. Here, I present and test a method to assess the potential of insect species from warmer regions to survive winters in colder regions under a warming winter scenario. The method is based on laboratory simulations of warming winters. The applicability of the method is demonstrated using the example of a Mediterranean pest, Sesamia nonagrioides, whose ability to survive Central European winters under a warming winter scenario is assessed. The method presented here is relatively simple, with potentially high accuracy of estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]