Data from: How do global forest pests respond to increasing temperatures?

Biotic disturbances caused by insects and pathogens have a major impact on
forests in the Northern hemisphere. Knowledge of the effects of increasing
temperature on the performance of these forest pests will thus be crucial
for predicting future disturbance risks. Here, we systematically review
the direct effects of increasing temperatures on four functional subgroups
of forest pests, including leaf chewers, sap suckers, bark and wood
borers, and pathogens. We considered 118 studies (2003-2022) representing
72 pest species feeding on 33 host genera from sub-tropical, temperate and
boreal forests in Asia, Europe and North America. Based on a subset of 89
studies reporting the required data, we conducted a meta-analysis (i)
distinguishing the functional subgroups, and (ii) considering the main
life-history traits, i.e. development, fitness, and survival. A
temperature corresponding to the expected mean temperature during the
growing season in the years 2081-2100 had a significant positive effect on
the overall performance of leaf chewers (+18%) and bark and wood borers
(+10%), while sap suckers and pathogens remained unaffected. In contrast,
performance was not or even significantly negatively affected when a more
pronounced temperature increase, i.e. corresponding to the temperature
maxima in 2081-2100, was considered. This finding reflects the non-linear
temperature-performance relationship beyond currently evolved temperature
optima in insects and pathogens. Furthermore, we showed that differential
responses of life-history traits to increased temperatures may
counterbalance each other (e.g. development vs. survival), highlighting
the importance of a multi-trait approach to assessing the impact of global
warming on pest performance. By quantifying the effects of increasing
temperatures on forest pest performance, our results facilitate the
prediction of biotic disturbance impacts in a future climate. For
instance, they could provide a valuable contribution to the
parameterization of large-scale ecosystem models, which often do not
explicitly consider the response of biotic disturbances to climate change.