In agroecosystems, local and landscape features, as well as natural enemy abundance and richness, are significant predictors of predation services that may result in biological control of pests. Despite the increasing importance of urban gardening for provisioning of food to urban populations, most urban gardeners suffer from high pest problems, and have little knowledge about how to manage the...

Crops producing insecticidal crystal (Cry) proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) control important lepidopteran pests. However, pests such as aphids not susceptible to Cry proteins may require other integrated pest management (IPM) tactics, including biological control. We fed aphids on Bt and non-Bt plants and analyzed the Bt protein residue in aphids and compared the effects of Bt plants ...

www.frontiersinecology.org © The Ecological Society of America T the world, humans compete with a multitude of pest species for food, fiber, and timber, although natural predators greatly reduce the densities of many of these pests. Loss of natural pest control services could have important economic, environmental, and human health consequences (Daily 1997). The Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadar...

Entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) are cosmopolitan species of great interest in pest management due to their ability cause epizooty soil-dwelling and aboveground insects. Besides direct effect against a wide host range serious agricultural insect pests, such as aphids, major emphasis has been placed on investigating the impact EPF with endophytic traits (EIPF) tripartite interactions between plants,...

Introduction / Background. Wisconsin continues to be a leader in the production of commercial tablestock and processing potatoes as well as seed in the US averaging over 77,000 K acres through the 5 year interval 2001 through 2005 (USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2006). Total farm gate value of the potato industry in the state has been valued at just over 201 M dollars per year ...

Cotton varieties expressing Cry proteins derived from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are grown worldwide for the management of pest Lepidoptera. To prevent non-target pest outbreaks and to retain the biological control function provided by predators and parasitoids, the potential risk that Bt crops may pose to non-target arthropods is addressed prior to their commercialization. ...

Growing concerns about the environmental consequences of chemically based pest control strategies have precipitated a call for the development of integrated, ecologically based pest management programs. Carabid or ground beetles (Coleoptera:Carabidae) are an important group of natural enemies of common agricultural pests such as aphids, slugs, and other beetles. Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is ...

Agricultural landscapes can be characterized as a mosaic of habitat patches interspersed with hostile matrix, or as a gradient of patches ranging from suitable to unsuitable for different species. Arthropods moving through these landscapes encounter a range of edges, with different permeability. Patches of native vegetation in these landscapes may support natural enemies of crop pests by provid...

among several pests of rice as one of the main agricultural products in iran, rice borer, chilo suppressalis is one of the most important pests of this crop. use of pesticides coincided with the occurrence of this pest in the northern region of iran in 1972. at present in order to control this pest, more than 12000 tones of pesticides granules are used annually. ecological effects of pesticides...