Basso Publishes PNAS Commentary Challenging Simplistic Climate–Pest Predictions

June 1, 2026

Dr. Bruno Basso’s latest PNAS Commentary offers a timely and impactful contribution to the conversation on climate change and agricultural sustainability, highlighting the importance of moving beyond oversimplified predictions of universal pest proliferation under warming. By engaging with the robust field-based analysis of Lippey et al., Basso underscores how real-world agroecosystems respond in complex, species-specific ways that often defy laboratory expectations. Drawing on large-scale, long-term datasets, the commentary elevates a critical message for the scientific community: temperature alone cannot explain ecological outcomes in the field, where climate interacts with water, soil, crops, and biological communities. This work not only reframes how we assess pest risks under climate change but also champions a systems-based, process-driven modeling approach as the future of agricultural forecasting—solidifying Dr. Basso’s role at the forefront of advancing integrative, data-driven solutions for resilient food systems.

Read the entire Commentary on the PNAS Website.