Prof. Ma Chunsen Team Publishes Groundbreaking Study on Pest Responses to Global Change in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment

Recently, Professor Ma Chunsen's team from the College of Life Science at Hebei University was invited to publish a paper titled "Crop pest responses to global changes in climate and land management" in the top-tier journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (which has a five-year impact factor of 54.6). This paper marks the highest impact factor journal published by Hebei University as the primary affiliation to date, and it is also the first paper in the field of plant protection published in this journal. It reflects significant progress in scientific research by Hebei University in globally relevant fields.

The study primarily addresses a long-standing issue: that human activities and global change lead to a decline in insect biodiversity. Pests co-evolve with agricultural ecosystems, demonstrating strong reproductive capacity, dispersal ability, and resilience. Coupled with high-quality crops as host plants, this promotes rapid population growth. The responses of insects to global change are complex in terms of both intensity and direction, and there is a lack of well-founded general understanding. This research, for the first time, clarifies that overall, climate warming exacerbates pest outbreaks, expands their geographical distribution, advances phenological periods, and increases annual generations, based on 2,043 data points derived from 959 pieces of literature. It also finds that mid to high latitudes are more favorable for pest occurrences than tropical regions, and that drought, deforestation, land reclamation, fertilization, irrigation, and global trade generally promote pest proliferation. This research is of great significance for reducing pest impacts and ensuring food security under future global changes.

Professor Ma Chunsen was invited to organize a leading global team to co-author and publish this paper, marking that our university is now in the international top tier in the field of pest global change biology. Ma Chunsen is the first author, and postdoctoral researchers Wang Bingxin, Wang Xuejing, Lin Qingcai, along with Associate Researcher Ma Gang from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, are co-corresponding authors. The research was also completed in collaboration with Associate Researcher Zhang Wei from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Yang Xuefang from our university, Professor Joan van Baaren from the French National Center for Scientific Research - University of Rennes, Professor Daniel P. Bebber from the University of Exeter, Professor Sanford D. Eigenbrode from the University of Idaho, Professor Myron P. Zalucki from the University of Queensland in Australia, and Zeng Juan from the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The research was supported by various projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation, the National Key R&D Program, and the Hebei Natural Science Foundation.

Figure 1. The impact of global change driving factors on crop pests and agricultural productivity.

Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-025-00652-3