Climate change effects on physiology and population processes of hosts and vectors that influence the spread of hemipteran‐borne plant viruses

Abstract

Abstract Plant virus diseases constitute one of the limiting factors to the productivity of agriculture. Changes in host plants and insect vector populations that might result from climate change (their geographical distribution range, their densities, migration potential and phenology) could affect the spread of plant viruses. At the individual level, alterations in plant physiological processes that are relevant to their molecular interactions with viruses, like changes in metabolism, leaf temperature, and their effects on some processes, like the temperature‐sensitive antiviral resistance based in RNA silencing, can also influence the ability of individual plants to control viral infections. In order to assess the impact that climate change may have on the incidence and spread of hemipteran‐borne plant viruses, its potential effects on virus/plant interactions and hemipteran insect vectors, as well as other operating processes, which could exacerbate or mitigate them, are identified and analyzed in this review.