It’s finally happening! The cicadas are emerging! You’d have to live under a rock to not have heard that this year’s a very big deal for cicadas and their admirers. Harmless but noisy, cicadas are insects that gain the attention of scientists and bug enthusiasts alike because of their peculiar habit of popping out of the ground all at once.
It’s still a mystery how cicadas communicate with one another underground to decide to rise simultaneously, but temperatures have been thought to play a role. Soil temperatures need to reach 64 degrees before cicadas emerge. This means our changing climate will likely impact cicada emergence patterns according to scientists, including Chris Simon, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut who has studied the curious creatures for years.
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The rare double brood
This year is even more special than usual. It’s a rare event as two distinct cicada broods, each on its own emergence cycle, are synchronizing for the first time since 1803. One brood, primarily in northern Illinois, follows a 17-year cycle, while another, spanning the Midwest across southern states to Maryland, operates on a 13-year cycle. As a result, experts anticipate tens of billions of cicadas emerging across the Midwest and Southeast this summer.
Cicadas emerge simultaneously as a brood to protect themselves, taking a strength-in-numbers approach to survival. Somehow, cicadas know that if they stick together, their species is more likely to survive. Predators like birds (and even humans!) can’t possibly eat every last one of them when they are clinging to trees en masse.
How climate change impacts cicada cycles
Emerging en masse can’t protect cicadas from the climate crisis. “Warmer winters and earlier springs will cause cicadas to come out earlier,” Simon told CNET. “Warming climates also increase the growing season in a given area so that cicadas may be ready to emerge from the ground years earlier—generally four years earlier—turning 17-year cicada populations into temporary 13-year cicadas. If this happens repeatedly, we hypothesize that 17-year cicadas could become permanent 13-year cicadas.”
Further climate impacts may involve cicadas migrating north as temperatures rise. The plant species cicadas prefer would then follow suit by shifting north. Additionally, there could be a rise in the number of straggler cicadas, those emerging out-of-sync with their brood. Simon theorized to NBC News that recent surges in stragglers may be attributed to the cicadas’ accelerated development underground, spurred by climate-change-induced extended growing seasons for the plants cicadas feed on.
But wait—climate change affects other insects too
Cicadas aren’t the only insects impacted by climate change. Warming temperatures and heightened rainfall are creating more favorable conditions for ticks and mosquitoes, both vectors of disease, in many regions, including large parts of the U.S. Moreover, pollinators, like bees, that are vital to ecosystems and food chains face the threat of extinction. A 2022 study examining the effects of temperature shifts on insects revealed that 65% of the studied insect populations could go extinct over the next century.
As we marvel (or if you’re a hater, cringe) at cicadas making their presence known across the U.S. this summer, the seemingly magical co-emergence of broods serves as a poignant reminder of the intricate relationship between insects and their changing environment. Even the smallest of our planet’s inhabitants deserve a more concerted effort to mitigate the impacts of climate change to protect the delicate balance of our ecosystems. That level of insect extinction could wreak unimaginable havoc. But for now, it’s time to greet the cicadas.
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