Insect Pest Management Objectives

1. Define the term "Pest" and discuss how it is subjective.

2. Describe two categories of pests.
3. Differentiate between exponential and logistic growth.
4. Differentiate between K and r strategists.
5. Define EIL, ET and Characteristic Abundance.
6. Define Pest Resurgence and Secondary Pests and explain how
they can be caused by pesticide use.

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Introduction What is a Pest?

Insects compete with humans for: Now that you have had a chance to think about what
•Food (pre and postharvest) a pest is, let's look at the question more closely.
•Clothing
The answers students often give when asked what
•Shelter
an insect pest is usually an answer like:
Let’s start this unit by having you answer a seemingly
"A pest is something that damages crops."
straight forward question: "What is a pest?“ or
"A pest is something that bothers us.“
UF

These are both correct answers. A good definition of a pest that includes both of
these thoughts is "a species that interferes with human welfare or
aesthetics.“

Bean weevil
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Subjectivity Why are there so few pests?

 Approximately one million insect species named.
What is unacceptable to one person may be of no consequence to
another.  500,000, are herbivores that eat plants and compete with us.
• Some feel a single ant is unacceptable.  3500 (0.7% of herbivores) cause us problems.
• Others assume their is no problem until their is a resident colony.  200 insect species are serious pests in the U.S.

This subjectiveness regarding pests can even extend to pests that are
causing real damage. That's approximately only 0.04% of all herbivores. If we have 500,000
species of insects eating plants why aren't there more insect pests?
Most people in our society feel that a tiny blemish on any fresh fruit or
vegetable is unacceptable.
UF UF

Yes, even cigarette beetles like chocolate.

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Population Growth and Regulation Logistic Growth Curve
Malthus figured out the exponential growth curve (or J curve): As it levels out, the 'J' growth curve becomes an 'S' growth curve, also
known as the logistic growth curve.
The population at the beginning is not very high. The point at which the population is no longer growing is called the carrying
But grows indefinitely at a very fast rate. capacity (or K).

Carrying capacity refers to how many numbers of one species the habitat can
support.

Malthus didn't factor in

carrying capacity.

Modified from Daly et al. 1998, p175 Modified from Daly et al. 1998, p175
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Reproductive Strategy K Strategist

R strategists produce a lot of offspring with relatively little parental care.
Ex: frogs, fish, mice. High reproductive rate and several generations in a season = r strategist.
Few young and high parental care with few generations = K strategist.
Insects that tend to be r strategists are grasshoppers or aphids.
K strategists invest great resources into few young. These young are more
When trying to decide r strategist or K strategist you have to consider: likely to survive and reproduce.
1. Its reproductive rate.
2. Survival rate. Ex: humans, whales, elephants, bears, horses.
3. Parental care.
4. How many generations
rrrrrr K
in a season.
r
rrrrrr
rrrrrr
or K
K
K

“r strategist” comes from the population growth variable ‘r’.

“K strategist” comes from the carrying capacity variable ‘K’.

aphids

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Growth Factors Density Factors

What do you think a pest of a monoculture (one crop type) field is? ‘r’ or ‘K’ Density-dependent factors:
strategist?  Deal with how much population is present.
 Intensify as the population increases.
 Bare ground  Abundant but ephemeral resource  Regulate the population through reproduction and death rate in crowded
 Need high reproduction to take advantage situations.
Ex: Available food, predation, parasites, diseases
Different pests are different strategists, depending on the resources.
Density-independent factors:
Density-dependent and density-independent growth factors are those that  Include weather and the physical environment
affect growth in a population.  Are unrelated to the population size.
Ex: freezing weather (frost), insecticide spraying
These are a couple of terms used relative to pest control and the whole idea
of integrated pest management (IPM).

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Evaluating Pests and Pest Impact Economic Threshold
Modified from Daly et al. 1998, p278

How do humans handle insects?

Tools:
$ How do humans handle insects?

Tools:
Economic Injury Level (EIL) = C/VDK Economic Injury Level (EIL)
= Cost / (Crop Value)(Loss per Pest)(Control per Application of Chemical)
Economic Threshold (ET) / action level.
Economic Threshold (ET) / action level.
The ET is the point at which the damage caused by the insect exceeds the
The EIL is the point at which the damage caused by the insect equals the cost EIL.
of preventing that damage.
If you don't act before your pest population reaches EIL, then you are going to
If it's going to cost you more to kill the insect pest than the money you would lose money.
receive for the crop, then it's not worth trying to kill the pest.
It is difficult to determine the economic threshold and economic injury level
because you have to understand how much damage one pest is doing to a
plant, and you have to make sure you take accurate samples.

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Characteristic Abundance Economic Pests

Characteristic abundance (CA) = long-term average population size in a
given area. Economic pests have a CA above the EIL at various times during the year.

Ex: 1-2 deer/ acre; 9 sparrows/ acre; 320 insects/ acre Ex: the green cloverworm defoliates soybeans in the midwestern United
States. In early spring it is a problem. However, it isn't a pest during the late
If the CA doesn't reach the EIL, then you won't need to treat for it . season because a fungus attacks and kills it.

This would be classified as a non-economic pest because it is still causing When this happens, you need to monitor this pest in your crop throughout the
damage, but not enough where it would be cost effective for you to try and get year and treat when ET is met.
rid of it.

Many insects fall within this non-economic category.

Ex: the alfalfa caterpillar in central Iowa. It defoliates the alfalfa but densities
are low enough that it doesn't cause enough economic damage to treat.

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Secondary Pests and Pest Resurgence Secondary Pests and Pest Resurgence (Continued)
 Pest resurgence = an organism’s population rebounds after elimination of The long dashed line is a parasite of the pest. Its numbers fluctuate with the
natural enemies or competitors pest population.
 Secondary pest = a previously insignificant population becomes
Notice! when the insecticide is sprayed the parasite population crashes also.
damaging after elimination of natural enemies or competitors.
The insecticide was more effective in killing off the parasite than it was in
killing off the pest.
Since the parasite numbers are so low, it doesn't keep the pest population
down. This large jump in the pest population after the insecticide is sprayed
is called pest resurgence. This often happens because you wiped off the
pest's natural enemies while you were trying to control it.

!
Modified from Daly et al. 1998, p280

Modified from Daly et al. 1998, p280 17 18

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Pest Question Secondary Pests
A secondary pest was in such small numbers previous to pesticide
Think about this for a moment, in the previous example, is the parasite application that it was not a significant pest.
going to be an r strategist, or a k strategist?
It became an economic pest after the insecticide application. After
The parasite would more of a K strategist because it tends to be something application, this secondary pest's population numbers shoot up (if needed,
like a wasp that is a parasitoid. The wasp only lays a single egg in the refer back to the graph). This can be for various reasons, but it's probably
caterpillar. because you eliminated its natural enemies, just as you did with the pest's
parasites.
But what kind of strategist is the pest in this figure? It's an r strategist
because notice how it is able to reproduce very quickly, even if there are
only a few of the population left.

? Attempts were made to eradicate the pink bollworm on California cotton.

After insecticides were sprayed the bollworm was effectively reduced, but so
were the natural enemies of the secondary pests called the cotton leaf
perforator and spider mites. Soon after pesticide application their
populations rose drastically and the outbreaks of these two secondary pests
proved costly.
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Conclusion
Society must use caution with insecticide use for reasons such as
secondary pests and pest resurgence.

The competition for food between insects and humans continues.

Hopefully we all come out winners in the end.

Remember to review the unit objectives and see that you know each one.

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