While transgenerational plasticity may buffer ectotherms to warming and pesticides separately, it remains unknown how combined exposure to warming and pesticides in the parental generation shapes the vulnerability to these stressors in the offspring. We studied the transgenerational effects of single and combined exposure to warming (4°C increase) and the pesticide chlorpyrifos on life‐history traits of the vector mosquito Culex pipiens. Parental exposure to a single stressor, either warming or the pesticide, had negative effects on the offspring: parental exposure to both warming and the pesticide resulted in an overall lower offspring survival, and a delayed offspring metamorphosis. Parental exposure to a single stressor did, however, not alter the vulnerability of the offspring to the same stressor in terms of survival. Parental pesticide exposure resulted in larger offspring when the offspring experienced the same stressor as the parents. Within both the parental and offspring generations, warming made the pesticide more toxic in terms of survival. Yet, this synergism disappeared in the offspring of parents exposed to both stressors simultaneously because in this condition, the pesticide was already more lethal at the lower temperature. Our results indicate that transgenerational effects will not increase the ability of this vector species to deal with pesticides in a warming world. Bifactorial transgenerational experiments are crucial to understand the combined impact of warming and pesticides across generations, hence to assess the efficacy of vector control in a warming world.
How evolution may mitigate the effects of global warming and pesticide exposure on predator–prey interactions is directly relevant for vector control. Using a space‐for‐time substitution approach, we addressed how 4°C warming and exposure to the pesticide endosulfan shape the predation on Culex pipiens mosquitoes by damselfly predators from replicated low‐ and high‐latitude populations. Although warming was only lethal for the mosquitoes, it reduced predation rates on these prey. Possibly, under warming escape speeds of the mosquitoes increased more than the attack efficiency of the predators. Endosulfan imposed mortality and induced behavioral changes (including increased filtering and thrashing and a positional shift away from the bottom) in mosquito larvae. Although the pesticide was only lethal for the mosquitoes, it reduced predation rates by the low‐latitude predators. This can be explained by the combination of the evolution of a faster life history and associated higher vulnerabilities to the pesticide (in terms of growth rate and lowered foraging activity) in the low‐latitude predators and pesticide‐induced survival selection in the mosquitoes. Our results suggest that predation rates on mosquitoes at the high latitude will be reduced under warming unless predators evolve toward the current low‐latitude phenotype or low‐latitude predators move poleward.
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