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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Fort Lauderdale, Florida » Invasive Plant Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #208070
Title: Control of Pests and Weeds with Natural Enemies

Author
item VAN DRIESCHE, ROY - UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS
item HODDLE, MARK - UNIV OF CALIFORNIA RIVERS
item Center, Ted

Submitted to: Blackwell Science
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/30/2007
Publication Date: 3/27/2008
Citation: Van Driesche, R.G., Hoddle, M.S., Center, T.D. 2008. Control of Pests and Weeds with Natural Enemies. Malden, MA: Blackwell Science. 473 p.

Interpretive Summary: This book replaces an earlier text, which it builds on and updates. An extensive effort has been made to treat insect and weed biological control with equal depth. Topics covered include natural enemy host range evaluation, colonization, and evaluation for both pest insects and invasive weeds. One chapter focuses on classical weed biological control, which confronts both the nontarget impacts associated with biological control and the technical features of host range measurement and prediction, the tools for better future practice. Chapter 16 summarizes important historical stages in the development of classical biological control relevant to nontarget impacts, including discussions of many widely emphasized cases. Chapter 17 summarizes issues and techniques relevant to predicting host ranges of new agents and Chapter 18 considers indirect effects and whether, as a measure to limit such effects, it might be feasible to predict the efficacy of an agent before its release. Most emphasis has been placed on classical biological control, the approach most useful as a response to invasive species, of the four general methodologies (natural enemy importation, augmentation, conservation, and the biopesticidal method). Conversely, we have de-emphasized biopesticides, which have largely failed to play major roles in pest control. In Chapter 23, we review the principles of biopesticides and the biology of insect pathogens. In Chapter 24, we discuss the current and potential uses of nematodes and each pathogen group. Separately (in Chapter 21) we discuss the tremendous importance of Bt crop plants. These have dramatically reduced pesticide use in cotton and corn and thus have greatly supported conservation biological control. We view augmentation and conservation biological control as unproven approaches, mainly of research interest, with some exceptions. We cover augmentative control (insectary-reared natural enemy releases) in two chapters: greenhouse crops and outdoor crops or other contexts. In Chapter 25, we explore the success of augmentative biological control in greenhouse crops, particularly, vegetables, which is a proven technology. Outdoor releases of parasitoids and predators (Chapter 26) while having had some success, have had many failures, often for economic reasons. Conservation biological control is treated into two chapters. Chapter 21 covers methods for the integration of natural enemies into pesticide-dominated crop pest management systems. Chapter 22 treats aspects of conservation biological control such as cover crops, inter-crops, refuges, and planting of natural enemy resource strips. Finally, we end the book with two chapters that cover outliers and new directions. In Chapter 27, we consider vertebrate biological control, including new developments in imunocontraception. In Chapter 28, we consider the potential to apply classical biological control to pests of conservation importance and to novel taxa previously not targeted for biological control. We consider both to be critical future contributions of biological control to the solution of both environmental and economic problems caused by invasive species.

Technical Abstract: Not applicable.