Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Ecology, sustainable development, and IPM: the human factor
- 2 From simple IPM to the management of agroecosystems
- 3 Populations, metapopulations: elementary units of IPM systems
- 4 Arthropod pest behavior and IPM
- 5 Using pheromones to disrupt mating of moth pests
- 6 Nutritional ecology of plant feeding arthropods and IPM
- 7 Conservation, biodiversity, and integrated pest management
- 8 Ecological risks of biological control agents: impacts on IPM
- 9 Ecology of natural enemies and genetically engineered host plants
- 10 Modeling the dynamics of tritrophic population interactions
- 11 Weed ecology, habitat management, and IPM
- 12 The ecology of vertebrate pests and integrated pest management (IPM)
- 13 Ecosystems: concepts, analyses, and practical implications in IPM
- 14 Agroecology: contributions towards a renewed ecological foundation for pest management
- 15 Applications of molecular ecology to IPM: what impact?
- 16 Ecotoxicology: The ecology of interactions between pesticides and non-target organisms
- Index
- References
14 - Agroecology: contributions towards a renewed ecological foundation for pest management
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Ecology, sustainable development, and IPM: the human factor
- 2 From simple IPM to the management of agroecosystems
- 3 Populations, metapopulations: elementary units of IPM systems
- 4 Arthropod pest behavior and IPM
- 5 Using pheromones to disrupt mating of moth pests
- 6 Nutritional ecology of plant feeding arthropods and IPM
- 7 Conservation, biodiversity, and integrated pest management
- 8 Ecological risks of biological control agents: impacts on IPM
- 9 Ecology of natural enemies and genetically engineered host plants
- 10 Modeling the dynamics of tritrophic population interactions
- 11 Weed ecology, habitat management, and IPM
- 12 The ecology of vertebrate pests and integrated pest management (IPM)
- 13 Ecosystems: concepts, analyses, and practical implications in IPM
- 14 Agroecology: contributions towards a renewed ecological foundation for pest management
- 15 Applications of molecular ecology to IPM: what impact?
- 16 Ecotoxicology: The ecology of interactions between pesticides and non-target organisms
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The integrated pest management concept (IPM) arose in the early 1970s in response to concerns about impacts of pesticides on the environment. By providing an alternative to the strategy of unilateral intervention with chemicals, it was hoped that IPM would change the philosophy of crop protection to one that entailed a deeper understanding of insect and crop ecology, thus resulting in a strategy which relied on the use of several complementary tactics. It was envisioned that ecological theory should provide a basis for predicting how specific changes in production practices and inputs might affect pest problems. It was also thought that ecology could aid in the design of agricultural systems less vulnerable to pest outbreaks. In such systems pesticides would be used as occasional supplements to natural regulatory mechanisms. In fact, many authors wrote papers and reviews depicting the ecological basis of pest management (Southwood and Way, 1970; Price and Waldbauer, 1975; Pimentel and Goodman, 1978; Levins and Wilson, 1979). But despite all this early work, which provided much of the needed ecological foundations, most IPM programs deviated to become schemes of “intelligent pesticide management” and failed in putting ecologically based theory into practice.
Lewis et al. (1997) argue that the main reason why IPM science has been slow to provide the productive understanding that will assist farmers to move beyond the current production methods is that IPM strategies have long been dominated by quests for “magic bullet” products to control pest outbreaks.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Perspectives in Ecological Theory and Integrated Pest Management , pp. 431 - 468Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
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