Insecticides remain the primary tool for suppressing arthropod pests that threaten global food production, yet sustained and intensive use across diverse production systems has contributed to the repeated evolution of resistance in taxonomically diverse pest species. Using a narrative review approach, this article integrates molecular, ecological, and climate-related evidence to examine insecticide resistance as an evolutionary process shaped jointly by chemical selection, pest biology, and changing environmental conditions. This review synthesises current understanding of the molecular basis of insecticide resistance, encompassing target-site insensitivity, enhanced metabolic detoxification, reduced cuticular penetration, and altered behaviour, with particular attention to the genes and mutations that underlie resistance to pyrethroids, organophosphates, carbamates, neonicotinoids, diamides, and microbial toxins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis. The review then considers how anthropogenic climate change is reshaping the ecological and evolutionary context in which resistance arises, through range expansion, altered voltinism, changes in overwintering survival, and shifts in selection intensity associated with modified pesticide use patterns. Case studies drawn from the fall armyworm, diamondback moth, cotton bollworm, tomato leafminer, aphids, whiteflies, and mosquito disease vectors illustrate how these mechanisms interact with agronomic and climatic pressures in the field. This integrative framing distinguishes the review from mechanism-centred accounts by linking specific resistance pathways to field-level management decisions under shifting climatic and agronomic contexts. The review closes with an appraisal of resistance management strategies, including mode-of-action rotation, biotechnological interventions such as RNA interference and gene editing, and the integration of resistance monitoring into adaptive pest management frameworks. Persistent gaps remain in the translation of molecular diagnostics into field-deployable resistance management, and in anticipating how a warming climate will alter the tempo and geography of resistance evolution. Addressing these gaps will require closer integration between molecular entomology, agroecology, and climate science.
Omprakash Tetarwal, Nemichand Chopra, Rajendra Ghanswa et al.· Annual Research & Review...· 0 citations
Global food systems face a convergence of pressures from climate variability, biodiversity loss and the diminishing returns of pesticide-intensive crop protection. This review synthesises current evidence on agroecological plant protection as a pathway toward climate-resilient agriculture, focusing on three interlinked pillars: biodiversity-based pest suppression through crop and landscape diversification, biological control networks operating across trophic levels and spatial scales, and soil-mediated plant defense mediated by rhizosphere microbiota and mycorrhizal symbioses. Evidence from meta-analyses generally indicates that plant diversification can reduce herbivore pressure and enhance natural enemy abundance, although outcomes are moderated by landscape context, herbivore guilds and management intensity. Landscape complexity supports natural enemy communities more reliably than it suppresses pest populations outright, revealing a persistent gap between biodiversity conservation and realised pest control. Soil microbiomes and mycorrhizal fungi prime systemic defense pathways that operate independently of, and synergistically with, aboveground biological control, offering a belowground dimension of resilience that has been comparatively underexploited in mainstream pest management. Climate change is simultaneously reshaping pest phenology, range and voltinism, intensifying the urgency of ecologically grounded alternatives to systems heavily reliant on chemical control. The review identifies persistent knowledge gaps around scaling farm-level diversification to landscape and regional levels, mechanistic understanding of soil–plant–insect feedback loops under warming and drought, and the socio-economic barriers that slow farmer adoption of agroecological practice. It concludes that durable climate resilience in plant protection will depend on integrating these three pillars within regionally adapted, multi-scale management frameworks rather than treating them as independent technical fixes.
Omprakash Tetarwal, Nemichand Chopra, Rajendra Ghanswa et al.· Journal of Agriculture and E...· 0 citations
Rising global temperatures, shifting precipitation regimes, and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide are altering the geographic ranges, phenology, and population dynamics of insect pests that damage the world's major food crops. This review synthesises evidence on the physiological mechanisms, observed range shifts, and projected redistribution of agriculturally important insect species under contemporary and future climate scenarios. Poleward and altitudinal expansions have already been documented across multiple pest taxa, with average latitudinal displacement rates in the low single-digit kilometres per year, and modelling studies project further acceleration under mid- and high-emission trajectories. Case evidence from fall armyworm, cotton leafworm, maize stemborers, and several rice pests illustrates how thermal tolerance, developmental plasticity, and host-plant availability jointly determine the pace and direction of range change. Elevated carbon dioxide modifies host-plant nutritional and defensive chemistry in ways that can either suppress or, in some circumstances, enhance herbivore performance, complicating simple temperature-based forecasts. Economic assessments indicate that warming-driven increases in insect-mediated crop losses could reach double-digit percentage increases per degree Celsius for staple cereals, disproportionately affecting temperate breadbasket regions, while invasive insects already impose costs exceeding tens of billions of US dollars annually worldwide. Species distribution modelling, mechanistic niche models, and hybrid approaches are increasingly used to anticipate these shifts, though model uncertainty, incomplete occurrence data, and neglect of biotic interactions remain persistent limitations. The review closes by identifying priority research directions, drawing overall conclusions for policy and practice, and acknowledging the methodological limitations inherent to a narrative synthesis of a rapidly evolving evidence base.
Omprakash Tetarwal, Rajendra Ghanswa, Nemichand Chopra et al.· Journal of global agricultur...· 0 citations