Paper presented at the 52nd CFCS Annual Meeting, Guadeloupe, July 10-16, 2016
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS EFFECT ON BIOLOGY OF MELON THRIPS, THRIPS PALMI KARNY, AND COMMON BLOSSOM THRIPS, FRANKLINIELLA SCHULTZEI TRYBOM, (THYSANOPTERA: THRIPIDAE) Dakshina R. Seal1, Shouan Zhang1, Oscar E. Liburd2 and Qingren Wang3 1
Tropical Research and Education Center, UF-IFAS; 2Entomology and Nematology Department, Gainesville, UF-IFAS, Miami-Dade County Extension, UF-IFAS
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Environmental factors are most important parameters for the living worlds to continue their biological processes. Insects are the most diversified group that show effects of environment on their life history. Insects originated almost about 510 million years ago in the Cambrian period. They used terrestrial plants as their prime source of foods beginning from their origin. During the last 400 million years, global climate changed several times which favored some lives to flourish and destroyed some vast group of lives due to their less flexibility in complying with the climate change (Fig. 1).
Insects continued to co-evolve with plants; and progressed into winged form in about 299 to 356 million years age (Carboniferous period). Another climate change during the Permian period 252 – 299 million years ago cause insects to go through additional changes to adapt with more challenging environments. This time, individual development was through several metamorphic stages allowing greater adaptability: egg, larva, pupa and adults. Insects existed in the Permian period gave rise to the modern insect fauna, although the largest event of their extinction also occurred during the Permian. This event led to the development of the modern insects with wide range of adaptability. The phenomenon of climate change is a slow and continuous process which becomes consistently noticeable only after a long time period. The effects of climate change be enhanced by interfering with the natural phenomena, such as by adding pollutants, toxic chemicals, deforestation, disrupting food chain for human interest, and many other factors. Earth’s environment comprises of two major components-biotic and abiotic. The biotic environment is dependent on the abiotic or physical environment. Earth’s atmosphere is a primary component of the physical environment, which assures proper maintenance of the biotic environment. Earth atmosphere includes various gases which can be divided into two components- (i) greenhouse gases (GHG) and (ii) non greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases absorb and emit infrared radiation and plays direct role in “airborne fraction” (AF) which ultimately causes global warming. The most abundant GHG include, in order, Water vapor (H2O), Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Ozone (O3) and Chloroflurocarbons (CFCs). Non-greenhouse gases (second component of atmosphere) include nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and argon (Ar) and they are nearly unaffected by infrared radiation.
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