Tiger mosquitoes, Asian hornets and bedbugs: What climate change means for Europe’s ‘harmful demography’ haunting the Paris Olympics

The culprit is a Brazilian stowaway, an 11cm-long black and red spider whose bite causes convulsions, hypothermia, death, and—if you’re convinced by the male—a Special cases of pain due to uncontrolled erection. You can imagine the shock.

The closed shop for preventative disinfection, and the spider was gone, never to be heard from again. But it’s not the only invasive insect making headlines in Europe recently.

France suffered an unfortunate pre-Olympics scandal over widespread bed bug infestations, with Paris Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire warning everyone “no one is safe. You can catch them anywhere,” and reports of bloodsuckers on the Eurostar caused panic in London.

Tiger mosquitoes, which can carry dengue fever and the dengue virus, have also been detected across the country, prompting Paris authorities to dispatch entomologists. ‘detective’ to track their spawn points.

Meanwhile, the Turkish pharmaceutical industry is eyeing Europe more widely as an exciting new export market for scorpion antivenom.

Is climate change to blame for this apparent arthropod invasion?

Dr Matt Green, principal entomologist at UK-based global pest control company Rentokil Initial, which has operations across the continent, said the reality was less apocalyptic than the suggested title.

We are not close to dengue becoming endemic. Reports of bed bugs in France increased largely because people saw the horror headlines and started looking under their mattresses. And if we see more invasive species overall, it’s unlikely to be due to rising temperatures.

“I am often asked how climate change affects our business. Well, because humans have transported all the major pests to almost every country and certainly every major center of human activity, not as many as you might think,” Green said. Luck.

Is climate change to blame for this apparent arthropod invasion?

The good news is that those worried about running into the wrong Brazilian Wandering Spider can relax.

Most species need more than just increased temperatures to make a home in new and very different ecosystems. For example, Sheerness harbor near London has a population of 10,000 golden scorpions over the centuriessince trading ships brought them from mainland Europe, these harmless creatures have not yet spread widely because of unsuitable conditions.

What climate change is doing to Europe’s pest populations

This is not to say that climate change is not affecting Europe’s pest situation.

Termites – long a problem in Mediterranean countries – are finding their way into Northern Europe as temperatures rise, although the lack of wooden buildings means they are unlikely to cause widespread economic damage. wide there.

Aedes mosquitoes – the genus that includes tiger mosquitoes – have long existed in Italy and are present in France, which means countries like Switzerland are unlikely to escape.

Director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control Andrea Ammon said: “Europe has seen that climate change is creating more favorable conditions for invasive mosquitoes to spread to previously unaffected areas. enjoy”. speak BBC.

Fortunately, this is not the species that carries malaria – that is Anophelesspread to Europe is unlikely due to the lack of large amounts of standing water—unlike Aedes—it needs to reproduce.

The same cannot be said for Asian hornets Depending on where you live, there may be a picnic near you soon. Green said: “They move through France quite easily and there have been cases of them overwintering in the UK, which means we could probably have these now, so take comfort in that.” ”.

Then there are bed bugs. Even before the recent outbreak, parasitic infections were costing the French economy 230 million euros ($246 million) annually, according to health authorities. answer. Captions can rebook the hotel thousands of dollars for treatment and loss of income, and could create hysteria and panic during the Paris Olympics.

These six-legged vampires may have been around a long time, but they prefer warmer weather.

“When the temperature in your home is 25 to 26 degrees Celsius (77 to 78.8 F), it only takes 5 days for bed bug eggs to hatch. Under normal conditions, when the temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius, it takes 10 days,” said entomologist and co-founder of the National Institute for Research and Control of Bed Bugs Jean-Michel Bérenger. Wired during the height of last year’s panic

How pests in Europe are changing beyond climate change

Whether rising temperatures help or not, the pests we encounter more of are the ones best adapted to humans and our behavior—and our behavior is helping them. spread.

In rural areas, this is often done through monoculture agriculture, although sometimes all it takes is a tendency to import non-native plants.

Oak tree caterpillars—a species endemic to Southern Europe that devastate forests and release hairs that can irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory tract—has established a foothold in England in the 2000s, when an oak tree was shipped from Europe. Ironically, the incident happened very close to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where the authorities monitor such things.

However, it’s the urban pests that you’re more likely to notice.

Mice, rats, cockroaches and the like all have common characteristics that make them ideally suited to living in close proximity to humans, whether we like it or not. They are small, capable of crawling through tight spaces, often dark and active at night, making them difficult to detect. Importantly, they are also omnivores.

“They are very flexible so they won’t care about one or two degrees [change in temperature]. They are living in air-conditioned buildings,” Rentokil’s Green said. “Today some of the butterflies in the warehouse barely fly. They don’t have to. They just lived in a world full of food, moved around by humans. It’s a bad life.”

Sometimes it is well-intentioned or necessary changes in human behavior that help urban pests proliferate.

Media frenzy aside, bed bug populations do increased rapidly worldwide at the beginning of the 21st century. IN Australia, an increase from 500% to 4,500%; In New York City, the number of bed bug complaints sent to the council increased from 537 in 2004 to 10,985 in 2009, even though they had since dropping it.

Entomologist properties rise at the end of the DDT era—the infamous pesticide that dramatically cut global insect pest populations in the mid-to-late 20th century, before serious environmental and health concerns ended Its use ended and species began to develop resistance. In essence, we are returning to historical norms from a period of unusually low insect activity.

Don’t expect this to change. Although the pest control industry is deploying increasingly sophisticated surveillance strategies and ‘physical’ interventions, such as bed bug steam cleaning rooms, the move away from Chemical control means we lose what was once a powerful weapon against infestation.

Something similar may be about to happen to rats, at least in Europe, where regulators are investigating. Vision becomes increasingly blurred about the use of anticoagulant rat poison.

This may have good reason, but it makes pest controllers nervous. As one person noted, “there is a whole generation of pest controllers who have been trained to put rat poison in bait boxes. If you take it off the market, what are you left with? To quote AlienWhat shall we use, harsh language?”

Future

Humanity has caused many species to become extinct, mostly unintentionally, and continues to do so. Yet species that at least some of us like less have proved stubbornly resilient. Almost by definition, pests thrive when we do.

So what can we expect? In Europe, climate change and human activity are unlikely to make deadly spiders a regular part of grocery shopping or cause mosquito-borne diseases to reach tropical levels. .

But they will change the animal populations with which we share the environment. Get acquainted with Aedes and Asian hornets; Be wary of rats and bedbugs.

What will probably change the most, however, is our expectations of what pest control means. With the spray-first-question-later approach firmly enshrined in the history books, eliminating pests at their first appearance will likely be remembered as a 20th-century idea.