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16-03-2021

Insect pests in agricultura

Picture: Alejandro Pérez-Ferrer
Agricultural activity leads to an alteration of the environment, where the food web is simplified, and stability and resilience to change are reduced. The food supply that crops mean facilitates the increase of phytophagous populations, which we will describe as a pest if their effects on field crops cause economic damage, because their density is higher than the tolerance threshold. The industrialization of agricultural activity aims to maximize production at the lowest possible cost, and to achieve this, transformations are implemented that can further promote the emergence of pests. Among others, the transformations are aimed at the cultivated plant and its homogeneity, in order to make its agronomic management easier and more profitable, in crop fields which tend to be monoculture, and in the procedures to maintain productivity of the crop, which include the use of fertilizers and biocides. In the plant, pests can directly impair its photosynthetic capacity (folivorous, gallicolous or mining species), nutrient transport (borer species), or reproductive success (fruit perforators), among others. Indirectly, pests facilitate the entry of phytopathogens (mainly bacteria, viruses, fungi or phytoplasmas), or they are phytopathogen vectors. Certain actions, such as agricultural tasks, can have a high preventive power against pests, but if finally pests do occur, they can be managed using physical, chemical, biological, genetic or cultural methods. The harmonious combination of all of them is called integrated pest management (IPM), which is the most desirable for the profitability of the crop and its health, and the preservation of the environment. The article reviews all these aspects, both in terms of the pest phenomenon and its management.

 

Article published in
L’ATZAVARA
31: 103-114 (2021)
https://doi.org/10.2436/20.1502.atz31.103
ISSN 0212-8993 eISSN 2339-9791

Author: Marta Goula
Lecturer at the Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio-UB), Universitat de Barcelona