Ecofriendly Pest Management for Food Security

Omkar

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780128032657
• eBook ISBN: 9780128032664
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Entomology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Ecofriendly Pest Management for Food Security explores the broad range of opportunity and challenges afforded by Integrated Pest Management systems. The book focuses on the insect resistance that has developed as a result of pest control chemicals, and how new methods of environmentally complementary pest control can be used to suppress harmful organisms while protecting the soil, plants, and air around them. As the world's population continues its rapid increase, this book addresses the production of cereals, vegetables, fruits, and other foods and their subsequent demand increase. Traditional means of food crop production face proven limitations and increasing research is turning to alternative means of crop growth and protection. - Addresses environmentally focused pest control with specific attention to its role in food security and sustainability. - Includes a range of pest management methods, from natural enemies to biomolecules. - Written by experts with extensive real-world experience.

Chapter 1

Insects and Pests

T.P. Rajendran¹, and Devendra Singh^{2 1}National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Baronda, Raipur, India ²Division of Agricultural Chemicals, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India

Abstract

This chapter covers the origin of insects from an evolutionary perspective and their adaptation to millennia changes in climate, flora, and fauna in addition to special adaptation to anthropogenic agroecologies. Describing insects as survivors, these torch-bearers of extreme adaptations for survivorship could provide man the right cues and clues for efficient survivorship. The spectrum of ecologies that they have occupied on this planet provides them the status of unique adaptations. Their status as pests of benevolent ones to humanity is understood from a human perspective. The agricultural importance of insects relates to their depredation in crops and ectoparasitism in animals. These opportunistic associations of various genera and species of insects in annual crops and seasonal occurrence in perennial crops make for worrisome biotic stress, and farmers must invest more to secure crops and animals from these noxious insects. Alternatively, natural enemies of insects that parasitize or prey upon insect pests of crops or ectoparasites of animals shall be a boon to farmers to regulate and effectively suppress the pest increase and to efficiently manage crop yields. Crop pollination by a number of insect pollinators is the benefit by using biological pest control options by withholding toxic chemical insecticides from the crops. Enhancing crop pollination with natural insect pollination would be possible if biological pest management is adopted, by which synthetic chemical pesticides could be averted in crop husbandry.

Keywords

Agroecology; Biological pest control; Herbivory; Insects; Insect vectors; Integrated pest management; Pestilence; Phytophagous; Plant defense systems; Pollination

1. Introduction

Insects have been recorded on this planet for 480 million years, since the early Ordovician era (Rohdendorf and Rasnitsyn, 1980; Rasnitsyn and Quicke, 2002). This conclusion was confirmed on the basis of molecular data of genome sequences (Misof et al., 2014; Caterino et al., 2000). This was approximately the time when plants also originated on Earth. The chronology of events of coevolution witnessed the insects selecting various flora as their primary food resource; the plants also provide food to other herbivores of the food chain of our universe. Herbivory as a concept of exploitation of food resources is seen at its best in the class Insecta under the phylum Arthropoda. In the geological upheavals due to weather conditions and factors that determined adaptations of hexapods and flora on which they were dependent for food and shelter, the evolutionary radiation did bring about a plethora of variability of insects in their potency to exploit plant and animal resources. Phytophagous insects became more predominant because of the availability of various flora. However, overgrazing of flora is controlled by regulating the herbivory of insects through defense chemicals in target feeding tissues. Insects also adapted to the changing food resource and learned to adapt to the chemical ecology over many millennia. The ability of phytophagous insects to detoxify phytochemicals in host plants enables them to succeed with unchallenged survivorship. In the coevolution process, the changes in phytochemical profiles and the genetic ability of phytophagous insects to survive these changes made them finally rule the roost as highly successful herbivores on the primary producers—plants in the ecosystem. Wide adaptations over several million years to all of the ecologies of the planet make insects ubiquitous in their presence in almost all natural and manmade habitats. Their numbers and impacting damage to various commodities in agricultural crop fields, in storage, and in the health and well-being of animals and human beings have caused human beings to declare them strong competitors of our civilization. Anthropogenic ecology called agriculture has modified the behavior and bionomics of many naturally occurring insect genera and species, making them disproportionate in numbers in the given nutritional host crop profile when compared with other ecosystems. The key natural mortality factors of these insects are lower because of agricultural practices for crop production. The challenge on carrying capacity of these insects makes them survive on an r-/K-selection basis (Southwood, 1975, 1978). Their survivorship depends on the quality of host tissues and pressure from natural mortality factors (Andrewartha and Birch, 1971). The spatial structure of insect population dynamics is related to the food source and favorable weather conditions (Hassell et al., 1991).

2. Phytophagous Insects

The herbivores are a specialized group with specific adaptations to live on various plant species that have been evolutionarily adapted for food and shelter to complete their biology. Their metabolic needs are met by exploiting phytochemicals for energy, nutrition, and ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Insects and Pests
• Chapter 2. Biocontrol of Insect Pests
• Chapter 3. Aphids and Their Biocontrol
• Chapter 4. Parasitoids
• Chapter 5. Trichogrammatids
• Chapter 6. Anthocorid Predators
• Chapter 7. Reduviid Predators
• Chapter 8. Syrphid Flies (The Hovering Agents)
• Chapter 9. Ladybird Beetles
• Chapter 10. Chrysopids
• Chapter 11. Mite Predators
• Chapter 12. Entomopathogenic Nematodes
• Chapter 13. Insect Viruses
• Chapter 14. Bacillus thuringiensis
• Chapter 15. Entomopathogenic Fungi
• Chapter 16. Plant Monoterpenoids (Prospective Pesticides)
• Chapter 17. Antifeedant Phytochemicals in Insect Management (so Close yet so Far)
• Chapter 18. Neem Products
• Chapter 19. Semiochemicals
• Chapter 20. Insect Hormones (as Pesticides)
• Chapter 21. Integrated Pest Management
• Chapter 22. Biotechnological Approaches
• Chapter 23. GMO and Food Security
• Index