Pests and Pollinators

The Terms: Pests and Weeds Pest: Any organism that damages crops that are valuable to us. Weed: any plant that competes with our crops.

We have developed thousands of chemical pesticides. There are thousands of artificial chemicals developed to kill pests. Insecticides Herbicides Fungicides

Pests Evolve Resistance to Pesticides

Resistant Pests Green peach Aphid Colorado potato beetle Diamondback moth

Biological Control Pits One Organism Against Another Biological control/biocontrol: “the enemy of one’s enemy is one’s friend”.

Biological Control Agents Themselves May Become Pests

Biocontrol “should be used with our eyes wide open—and as a last resort”---Daniel Simberloff “only a small percentage of efforts have resulted in demonstrable nontarget effects, and perhaps fewer than 10% of these effects were substantial.”---two British scientists reviewing cases from 2000

Integrated Pest management combines Biocontrol and Chemical Methods Integrated Pest Management (IPM): Numerous techniques are integrated to achieve long-term suppression of pests, including biocontrol, use of chemicals when added, close monitoring of populations, habitat alteration, crop rotation, transgenic crops, alternative tillage methods, and mechanical pest removal.

We depend on insects to pollinate crops Pollination: the process by which male sex cells of a plant (pollen) fertilize female sex cells of plant

Pollinators CultivarsPercentage of Plants Cultivated by Them Bees73% Flies19% Wasps5% Beetles5% Moths and Butterflies4% Bats6.5% Birds4%

U.S. Stamp Depicting Pollinators