High CO2—a gourmet boon for crop pest

Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide could weaken soybean defenses—and be the best news Japanese beetles have had in a long time.

Two new papers suggest that the higher CO2 concentrations predicted for 2050 will mean extra trouble for farmers fighting insect pests, says Evan H. DeLucia of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).