Lecture1-PestOrigins,PesticidestheHistoryofBiocontrol.pptVIP

Lecture 1 – Pest Origins, Pesticides the History of Biocontrol;The need for pest management:;Where do pests come from?;Pesticides – Panacea or problem?;Problems with pesticides:;Control problems with such heavy reliance on chemicals eventually arose.;Another problem with heavy reliance on pesticides is target pest resurgence.;Third problem is secondary pest outbreak : Occurs when a plant feeding species which is not a pest due to naturally occurring biocontrol suddenly becomes a pest because NEs are destroyed by pesticide. Eg. mites;We can demonstrate secondary pest outbreaks experimentally: treat blocks of plants with pesticides, leave others as controls;Reaction to resistance, resurgence and secondary pest outbreak was to increase pesticide use. Resistance to low dose – up the dose Resurgence – spray again and again Secondary pest outbreak – treat like an original pest and add to spray schedule;This has been termed “pesticide treadmill” – once on it, grower couldn’t get off;Environmental effects:;History of Biological Control:;Parasitoids are less obvious than large predators - first observation was 1602 (Aldrovandi on butterflies - thought they were another life stage);In Europe, R. Réaumur (in 1734), is thought to be the first to propose biocontrol: he advised the release of lacewings in greenhouses for the control of aphids. 1752 Carl Linneus suggested “every pest has a natural enemy, we should capture and use them to dis-infest crops” ;North America - rapidly expanding agriculture in 1800’s;In 1865, the first successful international importation for weed control took place, when a cochineal insect (Homoptera) was transferred from India (originally from Argentina) to Sri Lanka, where it effectively controlled the prickly pear cactus within a few years;1873 first international movement of an insect natural enemy - Missouri state entomologist C.V. Riley sent predatory mite Tytoglyphus phylloxera to France for grape phylloxera - establishment but no control;C