What Climate Change Means for Summertime Bugs
A wasp clings to a plant in a meadow in the sunshine. Credit - Silas Stein—Getty Images
With summer around the corner, so too are the bugs. Insects, much like their human counterparts, are more lively in the spring and summer when the weather is warmer. And climate change means that globally summers on average could get less buggy. But when it comes to some of the more pesky pests, like ticks and mosquitoes, it could feel like there are more of them as they broaden their range of habitat or timing when they emerge for the season.
Our changing climate, however, stands to impact different species of insects in different ways. Studies show that globally an increasing number of insects could be at risk for extinction. Many are also emerging either earlier or later in the year than they used to as weather patterns change. While you might be hoping to put away the bug spray, experts warn that the change could have harmful impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, and in some cases, health.
Some insects are adapting to changing climates by moving to regions that might have previously been unsuitable.'They are not just expanding their ranges, but they're becoming more abundant in places where maybe they weren't as abundant before,' says Anahí Espíndola, associate professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
For some species, this can be cause for concern. For example, climate change is lengthening mosquito season and expanding the areas where mosquito-borne diseases like malaria or West Nile virus may spread. 'The likelihood of certain diseases being transmitted in places where those diseases weren't really a problem before are increasing, and we are expecting those problems to actually become worse as temperatures continue to increase,' says Espíndola.
Read more: How Climate Change Affects the Spread of Lyme Disease
In the U.S., the number of 'mosquito days' with warm, humid weather the insects thrive on, have increased around the country, according to an analysis by Climate Central. Climate change is also increasing the geographical range of ticks—which could increase the spread of Lyme disease.
Shifts in weather patterns meanwhile are causing some insect species to emerge at different times of the year than they once did. This change in timing can impact the insect's chance of survival—and that of the other species that might rely on it. 'Right now, we're seeing increases in temperature and increases in drought, and that will have impacts on the ability of species to survive in certain places, and the ability of species to interact with the right organisms,' says Espíndola. 'If you're a pollinator, and you're emerging and you are looking for a particular group of plants that you're going to be collecting pollen or nectar from, if that plant has already flowered, you have this temporal mismatch with organisms that you should be interacting with to be able to survive.'
The misalignment stands to have big impacts on ecosystems—changing how a species interacts with plants and other organisms. 'That's a big concern, because those insects are pollinators for crops and they are part of food chains for terrestrial animals, and are critical to a lot of ecosystems, as well as pollinators to our own food production,' says Mario Gallio, professor in the department of neurobiology at Northwestern University, whose work focuses on how temperature impacts insect behavior.
Pollination changes stand to impact our food systems. Over 80% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, mostly insects, with pollinators playing a role in over 35% of the world's crop production. Wasps, for example, are reportedly declining in population in England as the country sees more rainy days and flooding—impacting pollination and ecosystems.
While sometimes annoying, insects are more important than many of us give them credit for, say experts. 'The biodiversity ecosystem, animals, birds, everything depends on robust food chains that often have insects as an important component,' says Gallio. 'We are looking at impoverishing all sorts of ecosystems that have this one step that involves insects. For people who care about nature, it's scary, for people who care about their food, it's scary. There is plenty to be concerned about.'
Write to Simmone Shah at simmone.shah@time.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
31 minutes ago
- Forbes
Apple iOS 18: Are You In The 12% Of iPhone Users Missing Out?
Are you on the latest version of iPhone software or have you never installed iOS 18 on your phone? Apple has just released figures for the uptake of its latest iPhone and iPad software. Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max AFP via Getty Images The figures (released here) show an overwhelming majority of users are on the latest software, and that there's been a notable increase since the last time figures were released, in January 2025. At that point, 68% of all iPhones had updated to iOS 18, a figure that has now climbed to 82%. For iPhones introduced in the last four years, the figures are higher. Back in January, 76% of these iPhones had iOS 18 installed. Now, that's 88%. In other words, just 12% of those iPhone users are missing out. One of the key reasons Apple is able to boast such figures is that when an update is ready, it's instantly available to all compatible iPhones at the same time, thanks to its integration of hardware and software. Rivals like Android can't match this as each hardware manufacturer introduces their own version for their phone — look no further than the extremely belated introduction of Android 15 to Samsung Galaxy phones this year. Most iPhone users set their devices for automatic updates, so it's all done effortlessly, though you can of course control when you apply the update if you prefer. Security seems to be a big driver for users to update: as you'll know if you read my regular Should You Upgrade? posts, it's clear that the best way to keep your device safe is to keep the software current. It's also one of the reasons that when the next OS is out, Apple also releases new updates for the previous version, for those users who aren't quite ready to jump into the next series but want full security. The latest software also means you have the most recent features and improvements, which in turn adds to longevity goals. For the iPad, figures are also strong. Of all iPads, 71% use iPadOS 18 and of iPads introduced in the last four years, it's 81%. Though these aren't quite as high, it's worth remembering that iPads are particularly durable products, lasting for years, perhaps more than a decade, before they need replacing. In that context, the usage is especially impressive.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists deploy ‘mosquito STD' to fight malaria in bold biotech breakthrough
Scientists have flipped the script on mosquitoes, turning their mating rituals into a lethal weakness. In a striking twist on pest control, researchers have engineered a sexually transmitted fungus that strikes during sex, infecting and killing mosquitoes from within. This microscopic assassin offers fresh hope in the fight against malaria, a disease that kills more than 600,000 people each year, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. The fungus targets female mosquitoes, the ones that bite and spread the disease, delivering a fatal blow at the moment they mate. And unlike chemical sprays or bed nets, which mosquitoes have learned to dodge, this approach hijacks their most basic instinct—ensuring the fungus spreads naturally, one deadly encounter at a time. 'It's essentially an arms race between the mosquitoes and us,' said study co-author Raymond St. Leger, a university professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland, in a release. 'Just as they keep adapting to what we create, we have to continuously develop new and creative ways to fight them.'Mosquitoes' remarkable ability to adapt has long frustrated disease-control efforts. As indoor repellents like bed nets and insecticide sprays improved, mosquitoes shifted tactics, moving outdoors and striking at new times to avoid human defenses. To counter these evasive pests, the team enhanced a naturally occurring fungus called Metarhizium, equipping it to produce insect-specific neurotoxins that kill once inside a female mosquito's body. Instead of direct application, the fungus rides into action via infected male mosquitoes, which are dusted with fungal spores and released. When they mate, they pass the killer fungus directly to their partners. In real-world field trials in Burkina Faso, nearly 90 percent of female mosquitoes that mated with fungus-laden males died within two weeks compared to just 4 percent in the control group. Crucially, while deadly to mosquitoes, the modified Metarhizium poses no threat to humans. 'What makes this fungus particularly promising is that it works with existing mosquito behavior rather than against their natural habits,' St. Leger said. 'Unlike pesticides or other chemical control methods that mosquitoes can develop resistance to, this method uses the mosquitoes' own biology to deliver the control agent.' Researchers also discovered that infected males could continue transmitting the fungus for up to 24 hours after initial exposure, enabling each male to infect multiple females over time. 'Interestingly, we noticed that the presence of the fungus did not deter female mosquitoes from mating with infected males. Mating rates stayed the same, which makes this fungus a very powerful mosquito population control tool,' St. Leger said. 'And the fungus additionally made infected mosquitoes less able to sense insecticides, and much more susceptible to them, so it's really a double blow against them.' With Metarhizium already widely used in agriculture for pest control, scientists believe this mosquito-specific adaptation could be a game changer, especially when paired with existing methods. While hurdles remain to scale up the 'mosquito STD' for widespread use, the study marks a major leap forward in the long battle against mosquito-borne diseases. 'Mosquitoes are the world's deadliest animal. It's believed that they alone, by transmitting disease, have killed half of all human beings who have ever lived,' St. Leger noted. 'Being able to eliminate mosquitoes quickly and effectively will save people all over the world.' The study has been published in Scientific Reports.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
We finally may be able to rid the world of mosquitoes. But should we?
They buzz, they bite, and they cause some of the deadliest diseases known to humanity. Mosquitoes are perhaps the planet's most universally reviled animals. If we could zap them off the face of the Earth, should we? Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The question is no longer hypothetical. In recent years, scientists have devised powerful genetic tools that may be able to eradicate mosquitoes and other pests once and for all. Now, some doctors and scientists say it is time to take the extraordinary step of unleashing gene editing to suppress mosquitoes and avoid human suffering from malaria, dengue, West Nile virus and other serious diseases. 'There are so many lives at stake with malaria that we want to make sure that this technology could be used in the near future,' said Alekos Simoni, a molecular biologist with Target Malaria, a project aiming to target vector mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the development of this technology also raises a profound ethical question: When, if ever, is it okay to intentionally drive a species out of existence? Even the famed naturalist E.O. Wilson once said: 'I would gladly throw the switch and be the executioner myself' for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But some researchers and ethicists warn it may be too dangerous to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. Even irritating, itty-bitty mosquitoes, they say, may have enough inherent value to keep around. - - - How to exterminate mosquitoes Target Malaria is one of the most ambitious mosquito suppression efforts in the works. Simoni and his colleagues are seeking to diminish populations of mosquitoes in the Anopheles gambiae complex that are responsible for spreading the deadly disease. In their labs, the scientists have introduced a gene mutation that causes female mosquito offspring to hatch without functional ovaries, rendering them infertile. Male mosquito offspring can carry the gene but remain physically unaffected. The concept is that when female mosquitoes inherit the gene from both their mother and father, they will go on to die without producing offspring. Meanwhile, when males and females carrying just one copy of the gene mate with wild mosquitoes, they will spread the gene further until no fertile females are left - and the population crashes. Simoni said he hopes Target Malaria can move beyond the lab and deploy some of the genetically modified mosquitoes in their natural habitats within the next five years. The nonprofit research consortium gets its core funding from the Gates Foundation, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Open Philanthropy, backed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. 'We believe that this technology can really be transformative,' Simoni said. At the heart of Target Malaria's work is a powerful genetic tool called a gene drive. Under the normal rules of inheritance, a parent has a 50-50 chance of passing a particular gene on to an offspring. But by adding special genetic machinery - dubbed a gene drive - to segments of DNA, scientists can rig the coin flip and ensure a gene is included in an animal's eggs and sperm, nearly guaranteeing it will be passed along. Over successive generations, gene drives can cause a trait to spread across an entire species's population, even if that gene doesn't benefit the organism. In that way, gene drives do something remarkable: They allow humans to override Charles Darwin's rules for natural selection, which normally prods populations of plants and animals to adapt to their environment over time. 'Technology is presenting new options to us,' said Christopher Preston, a University of Montana environmental philosopher. 'We might've been able to make a species go extinct 150 years ago by harpooning it too much or shooting it out of the sky. But today, we have different options, and extinction could be completed or could be started in a lab.' - - - How far should we go in eradicating mosquitoes? When so many wildlife conservationists are trying to save plants and animals from disappearing, the mosquito is one of the few creatures that people argue is actually worthy of extinction. Forget about tigers or bears; it's the tiny mosquito that is the deadliest animal on Earth. The human misery caused by malaria is undeniable. Nearly 600,000 people died of the disease in 2023, according to the World Health Organization, with the majority of cases in Africa. On the continent, the death toll is akin to 'crashing two Boeing 747s into Kilimanjaro' every day, said Paul Ndebele, a bioethicist at George Washington University. For gene-drive advocates, making the case for releasing genetically modified mosquitoes in nations such as Burkina Faso or Uganda is straightforward. 'This is not a difficult audience, because these are people that are living in an area where children are dying,' said Krystal Birungi, an entomologist for Target Malaria in Uganda, though she added that she sometimes has to fight misinformation, such as the false idea that bites from genetically modified mosquitoes can make people sterile. But recently, the Hastings Center for Bioethics, a research institute in New York, and Arizona State University brought together a group of bioethicists to discuss the potential pitfalls of intentionally trying to drive a species to extinction. In a policy paper published in the journal Science last month, the group concluded that 'deliberate full extinction might occasionally be acceptable, but only extremely rarely.' A compelling candidate for total eradication, according to the bioethicists, is the New World screwworm. This parasitic fly, which lays eggs in wounds and eats the flesh of both humans and livestock, appears to play little role in ecosystems. Infections are difficult to treat and can lead to slow and painful deaths. Yet it may be too risky, they say, to use gene drives on invasive rodents on remote Pacific islands where they decimate native birds, given the nonzero chance of a gene-edited rat or mouse jumping ship to the mainland and spreading across a continent. 'Even at a microbial level, it became plain in our conversations, we are not in favor of remaking the world to suit human desires,' said Gregory Kaebnick, a senior research scholar at the institute. It's unclear how important malaria-carrying mosquitoes are to broader ecosystems. Little research has been done to figure out whether frogs or other animals that eat the insects would be able to find their meals elsewhere. Scientists are hotly debating whether a broader 'insect apocalypse' is underway in many parts of the world, which may imperil other creatures that depend on them for food and pollination. 'The eradication of the mosquito through a genetic technology would have the potential to create global eradication in a way that just felt a little risky,' said Preston, who contributed with Ndebele to the discussion published in Science. Instead, the authors said, geneticists should be able to use gene editing, vaccines and other tools to target not the mosquito itself, but the single-celled Plasmodium parasite that is responsible for malaria. That invisible microorganism - which a mosquito transfers from its saliva to a person's blood when it bites - is the real culprit. 'You can get rid of malaria without actually getting rid of the mosquito,' Kaebnick said. He added that, at a time when the Trump administration talks cavalierly about animals going extinct, intentional extinction should be an option for only 'particularly horrific species.' But Ndebele, who is from Zimbabwe, noted that most of the people opposed to the elimination of the mosquitoes 'are not based in Africa.' Ndebele has intimate experience with malaria; he once had to rush his sick son to a hospital after the disease manifested as a hallucinatory episode. 'We're just in panic mode,' he recalled. 'You can just imagine - we're not sure what's happening with this young guy.' Still, Ndebele and his colleagues expressed caution about using gene-drive technology. Even if people were to agree to rid the globe of every mosquito - not just Anopheles gambiae but also ones that transmit other diseases or merely bite and irritate - it would be a 'herculean undertaking,' according to Kaebnick. There are more than 3,500 known species, each potentially requiring its own specially designed gene drive. And there is no guarantee a gene drive would wipe out a population as intended. Simoni, the gene-drive researcher, agreed that there are limits to what the technology can do. His team's modeling suggests it would suppress malaria-carrying mosquitoes only locally without outright eliminating them. Mosquitoes have been 'around for hundreds of millions of years,' he said. 'It's a very difficult species to eliminate.' Related Content Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears Black Democrats fume over 2024 while 'searching for a leader' in 2028
