Lecture 25: Integrated Pest Management

Insects function

- On neurological level
- Circulatory system is how they digest food, their reproductive system, their morphology and physiology
- Application in reference to managing them

What is a pest?

- An insect where you don't want it
- When working on pest management
- Context matters
- Is pest present?
- To find out --> we sample

How do we determine if a pest is present?

This is called sampling techniques and it helps us to make decisions

In situ

- To find it in its original place
- Chicken with fleas, just by looking at this flock
- Biting fleas (stable flies) on dairy cow particular of where they want to feed (triangular formation)
- Plant feeders: potato beetles

Knockdown

- Using insecticide
- Backyard chicken survey
- Insecticide used to stun and kill insects on contact to sample insects

Netting

Sweep netting helps for collecting different insects. Great for collecting flying things

Dragging/Flagging

- Targeted
- Piece of cloth attached to string
- You are the bait, carrying sheet behind you
- Running around with sheet behind you to find ticks attracted to your scent

Trapping

- Tons of traps for many different varieties to take advantage of different insects for collection
- Using traps like mesh to target tiny bugs --> color: yellow pan traps

Trapping + Scent

- Kairomones
- Pheromones

Kairomones

Scent that attracts insects, that benefits receiver, food source, oviposition source

Pheromones

- Same species (AKA conspecific) scent attraction
- EX: mating pheromones

Pitfall

- Trap in ground
- Used for insect collection of ground insects

Soil Extraction

- Lots of insects that lice in the soil
- Break up soil through sieve or Berlese tullgren funnel to collect insects
- Works well for finding mites

Indirect --> Insect effects

- Corn roots and corn root worms
- Look at damage of corn roots to see how severe pest problem is
- Mites on egg of chickens --> high population on birds if they spill over on eggs

Remote Sensing

- Detect presence of insects without direct contact
- Growing part of agriculture
- Radar, bright spots show damage compared to the areas that do not have/have less damage

Do we need to do something about pests?

Are they causing damage or injury?

Injury

- Physical harm/destruction to a valued commodity caused by the pest
- EX: termites eating wood
- EX: holes in leaves (chewing damage)
- Something feeding on our animals

Damage

- Is that injury causing damage?
- Value lost to the commodity because of injury by the pest
- EX: pill bugs feeding on strawberry causing damage to the thing we want to eat
- More extreme: termites (injury and damage together) we see termites eating our wood, we don't want them there

What is integrated pest management?

- The use of multiple techniques to decrease or eliminate the negative effect of pest insects
- Keeping them at low levels
- Termites: eradication at local level

8 Ways to Manage Insects

- Chemical insects
- Biological control
- Host plant resistance
- Physical/mechanical control
- Cultural control
- Pheromones and Attractants
- Genetic control
- Regulatory Control

Chemical Control

- Use of pesticides
- Development of synthetic pesticides (DDT= dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane
- Not the first use --> other chemicals used
- Basic functions that insecticides disrupt: Reproduction, Molting, Digestive, Nervous system -- Conserved: we have those systems too! Dose matters, if we used too much it impacts us! Exoskeleton/cuticle, Feeding/gut, Gut microbiota (termites microbiota that help feed on wood), Some very insect specific, but some are also conserved

Chemical Control Pros

- Inexpensive
- Effective in small amounts
- Easy to use
- Toxic to a wide variety of insect/arthropod pest

Chemical Control Cons

- Accidentally infect non-target insect
- Fierce environmental toxicity
- Using same compounds over and over again, insect builds resistance. Eventually not being affected anymore

Biological Control

Management of insects using their natural born enemies:
• parasitoids
• predator
• pathogen: microorganism that feeds

Biological Control Pros

- Can be expensive
- Low energy: the enemy does work
- Easy to use

Biological Control Cons

- Slow
- Introduction of unwanted species (hyperparasites)
- Off target effects

Host Plant Resistance (types of phenotypes)

- Antibiosis
- Antixenosis
- Tolerance

Antibiosis

Consumed plant adversely affects insects

Antixenosis

Deters insect feeding

Tolerance

- Plant able to withstand damage or recover
- Genetically modified crops: host resistance occurs at faster rate --> Bacillus thuringiensis when insect feeds on it, their guts explode.
- Makes toxins that attach to insects and kills them (antibiosis)

Physical/Mechanical Control

Removal or exclusion of pest

Cultural Control

- Changing crop or animal management strategy to avoid/eliminate the pest
- EX: rotation of crops (corn and soybeans)
- EX: new born animals susceptible to pest and parasites, manipulate when calves are born

Genetic Control

Sterile insect technique (SIT) --> release to impact insect populations, how we got rid of screw worms (eradicate) --> manipulate males with genetically modified techniques (mosquitos)

Regulatory Control

- The use of quarantine, exclusion, host destruction requirements, disease free seeds
- Lots of paperwork (government oversight)