• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Wind and Solar Cheaper than Gas Plants in Ontario and Alberta, Study Shows February 7, 2023
AI Predicts World Over 1.5°C Limit by 2030, Undercuts Climate Progress Reports February 7, 2023
February Brings Record Cold, Widespread Power Outages to Much of North America February 7, 2023
Solar Geoengineering Banned in Mexico After ‘Rogue’ Stunt February 7, 2023
Lithium Mine Divides Nemaska Cree Over Impacts, Benefits February 7, 2023
Next
Prev

Tsetse flies wilt in Africa’s growing heat

November 2, 2018
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Parts of Africa may grow too hot for tsetse flies, farmers’ scourge and carriers of disease. But will they simply move to higher, cooler terrain?

LONDON, 2 November, 2018 – Global warming may have done one good thing for the Zambezi Valley: it may have done for  the tsetse flies, with conditions soon too hot for them to breed there any longer.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

That means that a blood-sucking insect responsible for perhaps a million cattle deaths a year – and that carries the parasite behind the devastating disease of human African trypanosomiasis, commonly known as sleeping sickness – could disappear from the lowlands it has plagued for centuries.

That is the good news. The bigger concern is that the same warming in tropical Africa could turn the highlands of Zimbabwe and its neighbours into a suitable breeding zone for both the disease and the creature that carries it.

For the moment, a new study in the Public Library of Science journal PLOS Medicine claims only to have established the first clear link between disease hazard and temperature.

“Tsetse disappeared from these areas and have never established
themselves again. But if temperatures continue to increase,
there is a danger that they may re-emerge”

For 27 years, scientists have kept count of tsetse fly numbers in the c in Zimbabwe. The insect feeds on wild animals, as well as domestic cattle and humans. Millions of years of evolution mean that African pests and prey have found ways to live with each other, but humans and their introduced farm animals are still vulnerable.

The researchers report that, in the last three decades, temperatures in the region have risen by 0.9°C, and the hottest month, November, is now 2°C hotter on average than in the past. The insect can reproduce and multiply only in temperatures that lie between 16°C and 32°C.

And in those same three decades, fly numbers have fallen dramatically  Once, researchers could expect to go out in the afternoon in the Mana Pools National Park and find 50 flies per elephant or buffalo examined. Now, they write, they might find one tsetse fly every 10 catching sessions.

Since the vegetation and the wild animal population of the park have remained much the same, it seems likely that ambient temperature is the factor that limits tsetse fly numbers.

“If the effect at Mana Pools extends across the whole Zambezi Valley, then transmission of the trypanosomes is likely to have been greatly reduced in this warm, low-lying region”, says Dr Jennifer Lord, postdoctoral research associate at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who led the research and modelled the link between temperature and insect numbers.

Unwelcome reappearance?

But co-author John Hargrove, senior research fellow at the South African Centre of Excellence for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis at Stellenbosch University, warns that, if so, other African parks could once again play host to the pest, including the world-famous Kruger National Park in South Africa.

The fly is now an annual hazard for an estimated 55 million cattle in sub-Saharan Africa, and is thought to cost African economies US$1 billion a year or more just in losses of meat and milk.

“Tsetse flies did occur in these areas in the 19th century, but they were always marginal because the winters there were rather too cold,” Professor Hargrove says.

“With the massive  rinderpest outbreak of the middle 1890s, tsetse disappeared from these areas and have never established themselves again. But if temperatures continue to increase, there is a danger that they may re-emerge.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
43
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
26
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
28

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Peoplepoweredbyenergy/Wikimedia Commons

Wind and Solar Cheaper than Gas Plants in Ontario and Alberta, Study Shows

February 7, 2023
237
Beckyq6937/Wikimedia Commons

Solar Geoengineering Banned in Mexico After ‘Rogue’ Stunt

February 7, 2023
107
Michael E. Brunk/flickr

Green Building ‘Heroes’, Climate Contrarian ‘Zombies’, Shell Lawsuits, and ‘Sponge Cities’ to Solve Flooding

February 7, 2023
87
Peter Broster/wikimedia commons

Ottawa Mulls Higher-Speed Trains on Busy Toronto-Quebec City Corridor

February 7, 2023
69
The hottest summer days in a typical New York City year are now about 11 times more frequent than in the 19th century. Image: Andreas Komodromos via Flickr

AI Predicts World Over 1.5°C Limit by 2030, Undercuts Climate Progress Reports

February 7, 2023
65
Brian Robert Marshall/Geograph

Canada’s Solid Renewables Growth Falls Short of Net-Zero Ambitions

February 7, 2023
64

Recent Posts

Andre Carrotflower/wikimedia commons

February Brings Record Cold, Widespread Power Outages to Much of North America

February 7, 2023
35
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Lithium Mine Divides Nemaska Cree Over Impacts, Benefits

February 7, 2023
21
Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
358
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
212
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
82
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
139
Next Post

Calved Glacier in Antarctica is Five Times the Size of Manhattan

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}