Climate change interacts with insect biogeomorphic agents to alter physical and ecological processes

Insects act as important biogeomorphic agents that impact multiple physical and ecological processes through their ecosystem engineering activities. Understanding how insect biogeomorphology is affected by changing climates will help predict the complex roles that insects play under global change. Here, we discuss how climate change may interact with characteristics of insect biogeomorphology, and the physical and ecological consequences of such climate-mediated changes. We highlight that insect biogeomorphic agents are greatly underexplored taxonomically, functionally, and geographically. Therefore, losses and changes in insect traits and distributions will likely have unknown ramifications for the physical processes they affect and associated ecosystem services. Focusing on both terrestrial and aquatic insect taxa, we examine how climate-mediated trait shifts, range shifts, and diversity loss may alter their biogeomorphic agency under climate change.