Biologists at Michigan State University (MSU) have been studying dragonflies — which resemble dragonflies and are abundant in wetlands as both predators and prey — to understand what happens during their life cycle from nymph to winged insect, along with what they eat warmer and longer in the summer, according to MSU Today.
Now, a new study from MSU suggests insects will thrive in an ever-warming world.
According to SWNS, a British news outlet that also reported on the study, researchers discovered that dragonflies give birth to an extra set of larvae each year to keep up with the rapid changes in world weather.
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The Michigan beetles’ life cycles have been shown to match those of their southern relatives, who live in warmer climates — and this has successfully kept them alive, the same source reported.
This contradicts many scientific models that suggest that global warming would cause predator-prey species like the dragonfly to fail.
Dragonflies — which resemble dragonflies (one is pictured above) — are plentiful in wetlands, both as predators and prey. (AP Photo/The Greeley Tribune, Jim Rydbom)
The MSU team felt that current predictions about how climate change would affect animals were unrealistic — and that those predictions didn’t take into account how living things might behave differently at different temperatures.
Other models only simulated what would happen if dragonflies lived a year-long life cycle in a warmer world – concluding that they would burn out, die and possibly become extinct.
The beetles could actually thrive if they gave birth to an extra generation each season.
The MSU team found that the bugs could actually thrive if they spawned an additional generation each season.
Study co-author Phoebe Zarnetske, associate professor of integrative biology at MSU, said in a media statement, “We are seeing the pace of climate change is much faster than organisms have endured in their evolutionary experience.”
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She also said, “This rapid pace will pose an even greater problem as extreme events such as heat waves increase.”
To create the new model, a mathematician worked on observational and experimental work in the field and in the lab to create a more robust model that simulates the future for predators and prey, SWNS reported on the study.
Dragonflies are iconic species whose life cycles reflect the changes of a warming world. MSU researchers discovered that dragonflies give birth to an extra set of larvae each year to keep up with changing world weather. (SWNS)
By studying how temperature changes affect insects in the field, the team believe their predictions are much more realistic.
The research began when Dr. Laura Twardochleb, a student of Professor Zarnetske, spent a year observing the complex lives of spinsters, SWNS said.
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The insects emerge as adults from ponds in the spring – then mate and reproduce. The juveniles spend over a year in a pond and grow by eating zooplankton.
dr Twardochleb saw that early models that predicted how a warming climate would affect predators like the dragonfly were much simpler than the nature they observed.
They didn’t take into account the changing seasons of the north.
Michigan State University (MSU) graduate student Laura Twardochleb is shown studying the effects of warming on freshwater biodiversity. (SWNS)
They also didn’t track a predator’s size, growth, or lifestyle change due to hotter weather, SWNS noted.
Professor Chris Klausmeier, a mathematician and theoretical ecologist at MSU, integrated the observations of Dr. Twardochleb in his own theory.
The team laid the groundwork for future studies into how different species will adapt to a warmer world, said Dr. Twardochleb.
He said: “I can invent any model I want without being constrained by reality. But that’s a bit dangerous because of course you want something that has to do with the real world,” according to SWNS coverage.
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dr Twardochleb wrote in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, a research journal, that the team has laid the groundwork for future studies of how different species will adapt to a warmer world, particularly disease-carrying mosquitoes.
As SWNS also reported, she added: “Many models said predators would starve. That’s exciting – that we can make models more realistic.”
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