This book addresses the continuing controversy over the potential impact of genetically modified (GM) crops in developing countries. Supporters of the technology claim it offers one of the best hopes for increasing agricultural production and reducing rural poverty, while opponents see it as an untested intervention that will bring corporate...

Drawing on expertise from around the world, this volume identifies our current state of knowledge about the behavior and physiology of root herbivores. In particular, this work describes prevailing concepts and theories based on historical and current literature and identifies what new technologies and approaches are available to researchers...

In 1862, the gardener James Bateman sent several specimens of the Christmas orchid to Charles Darwin. This orchid was first planted in Britain in 1855 and it did not blossom until 1857. It had been discovered several decades before by the French botanist Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars in Madagascar in 1822. The most significant...

Biodiversity offers great potential for managing insect pests. It provides resistance genes and anti-insect compounds; a huge range of predatory and parasitic natural enemies of pests; and community ecology-level effects operating at the local and landscape scales to check pest build-up. This book brings together world leaders in theoretical,...

Neither pest management nor resistance management can occur with only an understanding of pest biology. For years, entomologists have understood, with their use of economic thresholds, that at least a minimal use of economics was necessary for proper integrated pest management. IRM is even more complicated and dependent on understanding and...

The Encyclopedia of Entomology brings together the expertise of more than 450 distinguished entomologists from 40 countries to provide a worldwide overview of insects and their close relatives. Combining the basic science of an introductory text with accurate, comprehensive detail, the Encyclopedia is a reliable...

The abundance of insects can change dramatically from generation to generation; these generational changes may occur within a growing season or over a period of years. Such extraordinary density changes or "outbreaks" may be abrupt and ostensibly random, or population peaks may occur in a more or less cyclic fashion. They can be...