Mechanisms governing responses of agriculturally important insects to global change

Climate change, land-use change, and intensified agricultural practices are reshaping agroecosystems, yet pest outbreak forecasts remain weak because links between individual-level mechanisms and spatiotemporal population dynamics are not well synthesized. We synthesize a framework in which global changes act through four proximate drivers: climate, host quantity/quality, top-down control, and management mortality, to reweight seven core processes: development, reproduction, survival, diapause, estivation, migration, and dispersal, thereby shaping within-season dynamics and cross-season carryover. A shared response architecture, signal sensing, neuroendocrine integration, and downstream physiological/molecular reprogramming explain why warming typically accelerates development, shifts phenology, and increases voltinism, whereas extremes reduce survival and reproduction and intensify selection for resistance. We integrate physiological mechanisms to regulate spring-founding populations and distribution dynamics, highlighting destabilized diapause timing, heat-drought-driven estivation, and wind-rain-mediated migratory redistribution. We identified key gaps that need to be resolved to parameterize cross-scale models and guide climate-smart pest management.