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Human health risks of invasive caterpillars increase with urban warming

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Abstract

Context

Development and survival vary across a species’ geographic range and are also affected by local conditions like urban warming, which may drive changes in biology that magnify or reduce the risks of hazardous organisms to people. Larvae of the pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiff; PPM) are covered with setae (hair-like structures) that cause allergic reactions in warm-blooded vertebrates upon contact with the skin, eyes, or respiratory tract.

Objectives

Our objective was to determine whether PPM larva development, phenology, and survival change with urban warming in ways that affect the risks of this organism to people.

Methods

In Orléans, France, we conducted a field study of PPM larvae across a gradient of urbanization from forests to city center to measure winter survival and the timing and duration of the life stage that poses the greatest risk to people.

Results

Larvae in the city spent more time in the fifth, most dangerous, instar than larvae in the forest. Urban warming indirectly increased larva survival by advancing phenology of urban larvae to a more cold-tolerant life stage prior to the winter cold period. Our results indicate that local urban warming drives changes in larva biology that increase the risks the organisms pose to people.

Conclusions

In recent decades, the PPM has expanded its geographic range to higher latitudes with rising temperatures. Our study highlights that local landscape variation, such as a mosaic of warmer and cooler temperatures in cities, can alter the effects of this type of range expansion for people.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

The R code used to analyze data for the study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Patrick Pineau for assistance with field work, Michael Just for advice on statistical analyses, and Nick Haddad and Michael Reiskind for helpful comments on the manuscript. Landsat data are available from the United States Geological Survey. We are grateful to Orléans Métropole, the town councils of Saint-Jean-de-Braye and Fleury-les-Aubrais, and their employees in charge of urban green spaces for permissions and assistance (especially Hervé Mifsud, Jean-Pierre Orange, Frédéric Viaud and Bernard Chevallier). We also thank the Office National des Forêts—Agence Val de Loire (especially Dominique de Villebonne, Patricia Ricois, and Caroline Samyn) and Pierre de Feraudy (private owner, "Le Bois de la Ferme Neuve").

Funding

This material is based upon research supported by the Chateaubriand Fellowship of the Office for Science & Technology of the Embassy of France in the United States to K.B.; National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide awards under Grant No. DGE-1252376 to K.B.; and the PCLIM network funded by the ACCAF program of INRA, France. S.F. was partially funded by Cooperative Agreement No. G15AP00153 from the United States Geological Survey. This manuscript is submitted for publication with the understanding that the United States Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for governmental purposes. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Science Foundation, the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, or the USGS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, 100 Derieux Place, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Kristi Backe & Steven Frank

  2. Unité Zoologie Forestière UR633, Institut National de La Recherche Agronomique, 2163 avenue de la pomme de pin, CS 40001 Ardon, 45075, Orléans Cedex 2, France

    Jérôme Rousselet, Alexis Bernard & Alain Roques

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  1. Kristi Backe
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Contributions

The study was conceived by KB, JR, SF, and AR. Material preparation and data collection were performed by KB and AB. Analysis was performed by KB. The first draft of the manuscript was written by KB and all authors commented on and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kristi Backe.

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Backe, K., Rousselet, J., Bernard, A. et al. Human health risks of invasive caterpillars increase with urban warming. Landscape Ecol 36, 1475–1487 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01214-w

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