An eco-evolutionary study of the impact of pesticides under global warming on mosquitoes

Interactions between chemical pollution and climate change, key ecological challenges, have the potential to strengthen the ecological impacts of each stressor, thereby getting increased attention as they are pivotal to improve ecological risk assessment. However, current insights on these interactions are almost exclusively based on empirical studies that exposed organisms simultaneously to both warming or daily temperature variation (DTV) and a pollutant and focused on immediate effects within a single developmental stage. Studies on interactions between climate change and pollution that integrated developmental stages and followed the effects across generations are rare. This thesis addressed these knowledge gaps by looking at interactions between pesticides and climate change across different developmental stages and across generations, concerning both immediate and delayed effects on Culex pipiens mosquitoes. I also investigated how warming and pesticide may interact and shape predator-prey interactions between the predator Ischnura elegans damselflies and the prey C. pipiens mosquitoes, taking into account how thermal evolution of the predators may interfere with the impacts of the two stressors.

Jaar van publicatie:2019

Toegankelijkheid:Closed