ABSTRACT
Modeling climate change impacts on overwintering of Spodoptera exigua Hübner in regions of China

Xia-Lin Zheng1, Qing-Cheng Huang1, Wan-Zheng Cao1, Wen Lu1*, Guo-Quan Wang1, Shu-Zhong Yu2, Zhen-De Yang2, and Xiao-Ping Wang3
 
Inferential models are usually used to evaluate the effect of winter warming on range expansion of insects. Generally, correlative approaches used to predict changes in the distributions of organisms are based on the assumption that climatic boundaries are fixed. Spodoptera exigua Hübner (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) overwinters as larvae or pupae in China regions. To understand the climate change impacts on overwintering of this species in regions of China, CLIMEX and Arc-GIS models were used to predict possible changes of distribution based on temperature. The climate change projection clearly indicated that the northern boundary of overwintering for S. exigua will shift northward from current distribution. Thus, the ongoing winter warming is likely to increase the frequency of S. exigua outbreaks.
Keywords: Global warming, integrated pest management, overwintering regions, population density, range distribution.
1Guangxi University, College of Agriculture, Nanning 530004, China. *Corresponding author (luwenlwen@163.com).
2Guangxi University, College of Forestry, Nanning 530004, China. 3 Huazhong Agricultural University, College of Plant Science and Technology, Wuhan 430070, China.