Skip to main content
Dryad

Data from: Habitat fragmentation drives pest termite risk in humid but not arid biomes

Data files

Abstract

Predicting global change effects poses significant challenges due to the intricate interplay between climate change and anthropogenic stressors in shaping ecological communities and their function, such as pest outbreak risk. Termites are ecosystem engineers, yet some pest species are causing worldwide economic losses. While habitat fragmentation seems to drive pest-dominated termite communities, its interaction with climate change effect remains unknown. We test if climate and habitat fragmentation interactively alter interspecific competition that may limit pest termite risk. Leveraging global termite cooccurrence including 280 pest species, we found that competitively superior termite species (e.g. large-bodied) increased in large and continuous habitats solely at high precipitation. While competitive species suppressed pest species globally, habitat fragmentation drove pest termite risk only in humid biomes. Unfortunately, humid tropics have experienced vast forest fragmentation and rainfall reduction over the past decades. These stressors, if not stopped, may drive pest termite risk potentially via competitive release.