Dec. 27, 2008 Climate change could provide the warmer weather
pests prefer, leading to an increase in populations that feed on
corn and other crops, according to a new study. Warmer growing
season temperatures and milder winters could allow some of these
insects to expand their territory and produce an extra
generation of offspring each year, said Noah Diffenbaugh, the
Purdue University associate professor of earth and atmospheric
sciences who led the study. "Our projections showed all of the
species studied spreading into agricultural areas where they
currently are not endemic," said Diffenbaugh, who is interim
director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. "The
greatest potential range expansion was seen with the corn
earworm, which is known to infest other high-value crops such as
sweet corn and tomatoes. Warming could allow populations to
survive the winter in the upper Midwest, the key region for corn
production, as well as areas of the West where other high-value
crops are grown." The United Sta