Warming temperatures are causing Arctic mosquitoes to grow faster and emerge earlier, significantly boosting their population and threatening the caribou¹ they feast on, a Dartmouth College study finds. The study predicts the mosquitoes' probability of surviving and emerging as adults will increase by more than 50 percent if Arctic temperatures rise 2 °C. The findings are important because changes in the timing² and intensity³ of their emergence⁴ affect their role as swarming⁵ pests of people and wildlife, as pollinators of tundra⁶ plants and as food for other species, including Arctic and migratory⁷ birds.

 

The researchers say the climate-population model they developed for Arctic mosquitoes and their predators⁸ can be generalized to any ecosystem⁹ where survival depends on sensitivities to changing temperatures.

 

The study appears in the journal Proceedings¹⁰ of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. A PDF is available on request.

 

Climate change is raising temperatures globally, which greatly influences insect physiology¹¹, growth rates and survival, including their ability to elude¹² predators. Average temperatures in the Arctic have increased at twice the global rate in the past 100 years, and the low biodiversity of Arctic ecosystems¹³ provided a simple predator-prey interaction for this study. Arctic mosquitoes develop in shallow temporary ponds of springtime snowmelt on the tundra, where their top predators are diving beetles¹⁴.

 

Using field and lab studies, the researchers measured the impacts of increasing temperatures on development and death rates from predation on immature¹⁵ mosquitoes in western Greenland. They then developed a model to evaluate how temperature affects their survival from the immature stage to adult biting stage across a range of temperatures in future climate change scenarios¹⁶ for the Arctic.

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