This volume is an account of the scientific and social responses made to the discovery of an invasive forest insect - the emerald ash borer or EAB (Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, 1888) - in North America, that was formally announced in July 2002. Since its recognition, this wood-boring beetle has become one of the most destructive and costly exotic species ever encountered. More than $300 million in federal USDA-APHIS funds (alone) have been devoted to battling this pest, which has killed some tens of millions of ash trees, chiefly within southeastern Michigan and surrounding states. EAB has now been found in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. But those numbers are almost certain to keep growing in coming years. While primarily a case study, this work nonetheless examines larger issues concerning invasive species as a whole, their inadvertent transport and worldwide spread through the rise of globalization, regulations that have been adopted to prevent their introduction, and the successes or failures of state and federal agencies to try and enforce those regulations. It offers the first general work of its kind to appear on the ash borer that is directed towards a broad audience including the public, entomologists and foresters, environmentalists and ecologists, researchers, regulators, and indeed anyone who wishes to learn more about this important and timely topic. No previous knowledge of EAB or invasion biology is assumed. This book covers all of the major aspects of scientific research and management that have occurred since EAB was recognized in 2002. It is thoroughly researched and draws from the best available data and sources, which represent (a) archival materials; (b) scholarly publications and conference proceedings; (c) interviews conducted with leading participants in the EAB program; (d) selected newspaper/magazine articles; and (e) reputable sources found on the Internet (e.g., USDA-APHIS).

With climate change and increasing globalisation of trade and travel, the risks presented by invasive pests and pathogens to natural environments, agriculture and economies have never been greater, and are only increasing with time. Governments world-wide are responding to these increased threats by strengthening quarantine and biosecurity. This book presents a comprehensive review of risk-based techniques that help policy makers and regulators protect national interests from invasive pests and pathogens before, at, and inside national borders. Selected from the research corpus of the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis at the University of Melbourne, this book provides solutions that reflect scientific rigour coupled with practical, hands-on applications. Focusing on surveillance, stochastic modelling, intelligence gathering, decision making and risk communication, the contents combine the strengths of risk analysts, mathematicians, economists, biologists and statisticians. The book presents tested scientific solutions to the greatest challenges faced by quarantine and biosecurity policy makers and regulators today.

With climate change and increasing globalisation of trade and travel, the risks presented by invasive pests and pathogens to natural environments, agriculture and economies have never been greater, and are only increasing with time. Governments world-wide are responding to these increased threats by strengthening quarantine and biosecurity. This book presents a comprehensive review of risk-based techniques that help policy makers and regulators protect national interests from invasive pests and pathogens before, at, and inside national borders. Selected from the research corpus of the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis at the University of Melbourne, this book provides solutions that reflect scientific rigour coupled with practical, hands-on applications. Focusing on surveillance, stochastic modelling, intelligence gathering, decision making and risk communication, the contents combine the strengths of risk analysts, mathematicians, economists, biologists and statisticians. The book presents tested scientific solutions to the greatest challenges faced by quarantine and biosecurity policy makers and regulators today.

Many international forums have identified the need for comprehensive, scientific methods for the pre-release testing and post-release monitoring of transgenic plants to ensure their environmental safety and sustainable use. In response to this requirement, a GMO Guidelines Project was established under the aegis of the International Organization for Biological Control, to develop biosafety testing guidelines for transgenic plants. This second volume focuses on transgenic cotton in Brazil and addresses both environmental and agricultural impacts. It draws out some general risk assessment guidelines and demonstrates the need for case-by-case analysis.

This book provides an overview of all documented releases of exotic (non-European) invertebrate biological control agents into the environment in Europe and summarizes key information on the target species as well as on the biological control agent released. It covers the period from 1897 to the end of 2009 and is largely based on the BIOCAT database, which contains records of the introduction of insect natural enemies, namely parasitoids and predators, for the control of insect pests worldwide. The content is covered in four sections: Introduction and Summary; European Insect Biocontrol Agents Released in Europe; Weed Control; and Discussion. Providing a representative picture of the history of releases of exotic biological control agents into the environment in Europe, this book is a key resource for researchers and practitioners operating in the areas of biological control and pest management, and those involved in the regulation of the deliberate release of exotic organisms.

This book is about the management of forest pests. It focuses predominantly on insect pests, but many examples relate to fungal pathogens, some of which are vectored by forest insects. The central theme of the book is the development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), the main impetus for which comes from the need to use environmentally sensitive methods of control appropriate to both semi-natural and plantation forests. Such forests are likely to be managed not only for timber production but also for recreation and to enhance biodiversity. An introductory chapter describes how forests have been transformed by exploitation and management and how altering the composition and distribution of forests can contribute to pest problems.
Subsequent chapters focus on the 'techniques' of management and control that contribute to IPM, considering in turn plant health, risk-rating, silviculture, tree resistance, biological control, microbial control and semiochemicals. By focusing on these important elements of management, the aim is to provide a critical analysis of the theory and practice of each one in relation to key aspects of both pest and forest ecology. The final chapter on IPM brings together elements of the previous chapters, discussing them in the context of the economic and environmental impact of pests, the economics of control, and the role of decision support systems. Detailed case studies are provided and future developments in IPM discussed in relation to sustainability, conservation and the potential impact of climate change.

"The book will be of particular interest to many whether in marketing or research throughout the pesticide industry and those involved in financial and investment in agriculture, as it provides an interesting insight to the way the industry has grown and adapted to the changes in legislation and regulatory requirements on a global scale." Outlooks on Pest Management - review by Emeritus Prof. Graham Matthews, Imperial College London, UK Pesticides have played a critical but sometimes controversial role in the development of agriculture. This book provides an authoritative account of the development of the modern pesticides industry. It discusses the emergence of major pesticide companies such as Bayer, Monsanto, Rhone Poulenc, Dow, DuPont, Ciba-Geigy, Syngenta, BASF and ICI. It covers their competitive strategies such as product development, mergers/acquisitions and diversification. Individual company strategies are placed in the context of broader developments in agriculture which have driven the evolution of the industry, from the Pre-Productionist period to the contemporary world of Post-Productivism and the Sustainability Paradigm. It also reviews how companies have responded to changing national and international policy towards the role of pesticides in agriculture and efforts to regulate their use. This book will be a standard reference on understanding the growth structure, dynamics and major players in a hugely-important and influential sector in global agriculture. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, from policy makers and researchers in crop protection to financial and investment analysts focussed on agriculture, and to all those interested in the development and future of modern agriculture.

Thoroughly revised and updated to reflect current and emerging practices, this book explores modern methods of disease control in field and glasshouse crops. It outlines the major crop diseases, with a particular emphasis on those features of symptomology and life cycle that are most relevant to the development of control measures. Modern diagnostic techniques are considered, focusing on developments in nucleic acid and immunological based procedures and their use in plant quarantine and certification schemes. The potential impact of these advances in molecular technology on plant breeding and disease resistance is also covered. Fungicides are a central part of disease control in the EU and, as such, a comprehensive account of their use forms an important part of the text, along with strategies to minimise the incidence of fungicide resistance in pathogen populations. Looking to the future, the book also addresses legislative, environmental and food safety concerns.

The best alternative to chemical control is often seen as being biological control - the introduction of natural enemies in areas where foreign pests become abundant. However, biological control alone is not always sufficient to maintain pest populations under a tolerable level; and it is necessary to learn how to make it compatible with other methods of control, and in particular with chemicals, in integrated control programs. Data on these important aspects was collected and elaborated over a period of seven to eight years and synthesized in this volume, which was originally published in 1976. The data relates to five groups of species recognized as main agricultural pests over vast areas of developing countries. It shows how complex the interrelationships between microorganisms are how much research effort has to be invested in such disciplines as systematics, physiology, ethnology and ecology for their understanding.

Termites are of great interest to both entomologists and those concerned with pest management. On the one hand their complex social systems and nest building make them fascinating for students of insect behaviour, while on the other they are major pests of crops and buildings in the tropics and subtropics. This book provides a general scientific introduction to the termites, including their biology, behaviour, pest status and control. Commonly used ecological and laboratory techniques are described in appendices. There has been no such general book published for many years and so this title will fill a definite gap in the market. It is aimed at advanced students of entomology and pest management, as well as professionals concerned with urban and agricultural pest control.

Concerns over environmental and human health impacts of conventional weed management practices, herbicide resistance in weeds, and rising costs of crop production and protection have led agricultural producers and scientists in many countries to seek strategies that take greater advantage of ecological processes and thereby allow a reduction in herbicide use. This book provides principles and practices for ecologically based weed management in a wide range of temperate and tropical farming systems. After examining weed life histories and processes determining the assembly of weed communities, the authors describe how tillage and cultivation practices, manipulations of soil conditions, competitive cultivars, crop diversification, grazing livestock, arthropod and microbial biocontrol agents, and other factors can be used to reduce weed germination, growth, competitive ability, reproduction and dispersal. Special attention is given to the evolutionary challenges that weeds pose and the roles that farmers can play in the development of new weed-management strategies.

Insect Pest Management and Ecological Research explores the ecological research required for development of strategies to manage pest insects, with particular emphasis on the scientific principles involved in the design and conduct of pest-related research. Although the connection between Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and ecology has been long appreciated, their specific relationship to one another has remained vague until now. Here, Gimme Walter develops the first general model of the entomological research requirements of IPM. He shows how to navigate through the diversity of options presented by current ecological theory, emphasising pest situations. Besides theory and principle, the book includes practical advice on understanding and investigating species, examines the ecological problems associated with polyphagous pests and beneficial species, and scrutinises ways suggested to improve insect biological control. As such, it will be an important resource for graduate students and researchers, in IPM, insect pest management, entomology, ecology and crop protection.

Bringing together bacterial structure and function, taxonomy, environmental microbiology, induction and development of plant disease, molecular genetics and disease control, Dr Sigee unifies the field, at the same time as emphasising exciting developments in cell and molecular biology. The book is written in a clear and concise manner, illustrated with numerous tables, diagrams and photographs.

Evaluates the carcinogenic risk to humans posed by occupational exposure during the spraying and application of insecticides. The book also features separate monographs evaluating the carcinogenicity of 17 individual pesticides, including several that have been banned by industrialized countries yet are still used in the developing world. Although some of these pesticides have been in use for more than four decades, evaluations of carcinogenicity were hindered by the sparsity of well-designed epidemiological studies. The first and most extensive monograph evaluates data from descriptive and ecological studies, cohort studies, and case-control studies suggesting an increased risk of cancer, most notably lung cancer, multiple myeloma and other tumours of B-cell origin, in workers exposed to insecticides during their application. On the basis of this evaluation, the book concludes that the spraying and application of nonarsenical insecticides entail exposures that are probably carcinogenic to humans. The remaining monographs evaluate the carcinogenicity of aldicarb, atrazine, captafol, chlordane, DDT, deltamethrin, dichlorvos, fenvalerate, heptachlor, monuron, pentachlorophenol, permethrin, picloram, simazine, thiram, trifluralin, and zitram. Of these, captafol, a fungicide used on plants, for seed treatment, and as a wood preservative, was classified as probably carcinogenic to humans. Atrazine, chlordane, DDT, dichlorvos, heptachlor, and pentachlorophenol were classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans. The remaining pesticides could not be classified on the basis of available data.

Biological control of insect pests, plant pathogens and weeds, is the only major alternative to the use of pesticides in agriculture and forestry. As with all technologies, there are benefits and risks associated with their utilization. This book is the outcome of a unique gathering of specialists to discuss and debate the benefits and risks associated with biological control. After intensive interaction it was concluded that we must place greater emphasis on the benefits, while not ignoring the potential risks. The authors address the various techniques and approaches used in biological control, including state-of-the-art reports and economic and risk analyses. The book will be of interest to researchers and postgraduate students in academia and industry in biotechnology, agriculture, forestry and environmental sciences.

Techniques for Reducing Pesticide Use Economic and Environmental Benefits Edited by David Pimentel Cornell University, USA Pest insects, plant pathogens, and weeds destroy approximately 400f all potential food production worldwide. This major food loss occurs despite the application of 2.5 million tons of pesticides at a cost of more than $25 billion each year. Pesticides provide many important benefits in pest control, returning about $4 for every $1 invested. However, this cost/benefit ratio does not include the annual environmental and public health costs of using pesticides which include 3 million human poisonings and 220,000 deaths annually worldwide. With more than 2 billion people malnourished in the world, a major effort is required to reduce the continuing 400ss of crops to pests. With a relatively small investment in research and extension, this crop destruction can be reduced. Technologies now exist to reduce pesticide use by at least 50%, without reducing crop yields or substantially altering the 'cosmetic standards' of fresh fruit and vegetables. Reducing pesticide use will lower the economic costs of pest control, protect public health, and improve the stability of the natural environment. The various pest management techniques available are discussed in all chapters of this book. It will help governmental leaders, scientists and the public to understand that many strategies, if implemented, will improve pest management, maintain crop yields, and reduce pesticide use.

The book provides comprehensive information on a wide range of topics from biology, physiology, genetics to the use of genomic tools in weed science. The book covers information at a more advanced level than the previously published books in weed science. It covers not only weed genetics and genomics research, but also weed management from an ecological perspective. Furthermore, the book also gives a broad coverage of novel mechanisms of weed resistance to herbicides. More importantly, it includes next generation sequencing techniques and bioinformatics of herbicide resistant genes in weeds.

This volume provides principles and practices for ecologically based weed management in a wide range of temperate and tropical farming systems. The authors describe how tillage and cultivation practices, manipulations of soil conditions, competitive cultivars, crop diversification, grazing livestock, arthropod and microbial biocontrol agents, and other factors can be used to reduce weed germination, growth, competitive ability, reproduction, and dispersal. Special attention is given to the evolutionary challenges that weeds pose and the roles that farmers can play in the development of new weed management strategies.

Insects, being poikilothermic, are among the organisms that are most likely to respond to changes in climate, particularly increased temperatures. Range expansions into new areas, further north and to higher elevations, are already well documented, as are physiological and phenological responses. It is anticipated that the damage to crops and forests by insects will increase as a consequence of climate change, i.e. increasing temperatures primarily. However, the evidence in support of this common "belief" is sparse. Climate Change and Insect Pests sums up present knowledge regarding both agricultural and forest insect pests and climate change in order to identify future research directions.

What are the ecological attributes of weeds that confer the ability to interfere with human activities? Roger Cousens and Martin Mortimer place weed management within an ecological context, with the focus on the manipulation of population size. The dynamics of abundance and spatial distribution are considered at both geographic and local scales. The basic processes of dispersal, reproduction and mortality are described, together with the factors that influence them. Management is shown to modify patterns of behaviour that are intrinsic to populations. Attention is given to the evolution and management of resistance to herbicides. This book provides weed science with the conceptual basis that has previously been lacking. It also gives ecologists access to the extensive database on the population ecology of weeds.

HPLC is the principal separation technique for identification of the pesticides in environmental samples and for quantitative analysis of analytes. At each stage of the HPLC procedure, the chromatographer should possess both the practical and theoretical skills required to perform HPLC experiments correctly and to obtain reliable, repeatable, and reproducible results. Developed to serve as a detailed practical guide, High Performance Liquid Chromatography in Pesticide Residue Analysis is a comprehensive source of information and training on state-of-the-art pesticide residue methods performed with the aid of HPLC. The book presents the pros and cons of HPLC as a flexible and versatile separation and analysis tool with multiple purposes and advantages in investigations of pesticides for food and plant drugs standardization, promotion of health, protection of new herbal medicines, and more.

The various approaches to pest control are reviewed with emphasis on their history, advantages, disadvantages and future potential. The book discusses how far chemical control has created problems and how far these may be solved by further chemical control or by alternative methods. The reasons why insects are pest problems are discussed so that the ecological merits and demerits of the various control methods can be assessed. Stress is laid on both the biotic and economic environments in which pest control has to operate. - Presents a balanced case concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the chemical control of pests in historical context. - A wide variety of examples are cited and an up-to-date guide to original sources is presented. - Thoroughly revised and updated edition of a highly successful concise textbook.

Plant parasitic nematodes are major pests of agricultural crops and cause huge monetary losses. There is a very high risk of spread of plant-parasitic nematodes from one country to another, with the movement of plants and planting materials such as seeds, bulbs, corms, suckers, tubers, rhizomes, rooted plants, nursery stock and cut flowers. In view of the large quantities and the wide variety of materials being imported and exported, it is important to assess the status of invasive nematodes and their quarantine importance in relation to agricultural trade. This book contains information on around 100 invasive nematodes and their potential threat in different countries. Each nematode entry includes information on authentic identification, geographical distribution, risk of introduction, host ranges, symptoms, biology, ecology, planting material liable to carry the nematode(s), nematode vectors, chance of establishment, likely impact, and phytosanitary measures. There are detailed accounts of diagnosis procedures including sampling, isolation, detection and identification of nematodes based on morphological and molecular characters. The book offers a global perspective on invasive plant-parasitic nematodes and useful for practitioners, professionals, scientists, researchers, students, and government officials working in plant quarantine and biosecurity.

Nematodes are the most abundant and diversified group in the animal kingdom, with four out of five animals on earth being nematodes. Nematology was first recognized as an independent discipline during the early part of the century and since that time has made unparalleled advances to become an integral part of biological sciences.Written as two volumes, this title provides a broad overview of our current knowledge of nematology. The first volume addresses basic biology, while this second volume covers applied aspects of nematodes as parasites of plants, humans and other animals, or as disease vectors, and the control of pest nematodes. The contributors to this work include the world s leading authorities from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, New Zealand, UK and USA. It will provide essential reading for researchers and students with an interest in nematology."