Potential distribution and phenological development of the Mediterranean Corn Borer (Sesamia nonagrioides) under warming climate in Europe

Climate change has the potential to modify the current distribution andphenological development of insect pests. Using a generic phenological modelcoupled to a model to simulate potential mortality during the overwintering season,we analysed the potential distribution and phenological development of theMediterranean Corn Borer (MCB) Sesamia nonagrioides, under simulated warmingclimate at three time horizons (Baseline, 2030s, 2050s) in Europe. The mortalitymodel included the simulation of larvae survival in the roots under the soil surface,thus simulating temperature of the soil of a maize field. Results of survival estimateshowed that mortality does not decrease noticeably spreading MCB in currentlycold areas where it has never been reported, due to the potential survival alreadyassured by the fraction of diapausing larvae in the roots. These results indicate thatlow temperatures affecting overwinter survival might not be the most importantlimiting factor determining MCB distribution. The development model linked to theestimate of survival including larvae diapausing in the soil showed a potentialincrease of generations in the Balkans and Turkey, and, to a more limited extent, inGermany. On the contrary, the estimated increase is negligible in theMediterranean basin, due to the potential stressful effects of high temperatures.The models were implemented in a software component (MIMYCS.Borers)composed of discrete model units. This is one of the models of the frameworkMIMYCS for the simulation of mycotoxin contamination in grain maize. Thecomponent based software implementation can be easily re-used in any frameworkbased on the Microsoft .NET platform, and it was used in the BioMA platform of theEuropean Commission.