Climate change and implication for plant protection: a general view

Abstract: Climate change is an element of a larger change, which is called global change that is constituted with increased nitrogen deposition, altered disturbance regimes, increased habitat fragmentation, invasion by alien species so on. It can be described as long term changes in global climate as a result of anthropogenic events since the beginning of industrialization era and has been documented with observed and projected data/effects. Climate change, which affects environment either natural or disturbed, includes global rise in greenhouse gases and temperatures, alteration in precipitation, and increases in incidence and irregularity of extreme weather events such as storms, flooding etc. Although this text will focus on the effect of climate change on plant protection in managed areas, mainly fruits, it is difficult to limit discussions with climate change itself because elements of global change have generally combined effects and interactions. Crop, pest (arthropods, disease agents, weeds and other harmful organisms are referred in this article) and management tools are main elements of the crop protection. Effect of climate change can be neutral, positive or negative on any biological processes, from gene level to ecosystem level depending on organism, region, and magnitude of change so on. However, we are still far away to make generalizations and set theories. In the text, the answer of where plant protection research might focus on will be summarized using reports and scientific papers which have used current data, projections and predictions.