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Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development
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Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 3755

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Marcus Alvarenga Soares

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agronomy, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri - UFVJM, Diamantina 39.100-000, MG, Brazil
Interests: tri-trophic interactions; biological control; toxicology and selectivity of pesticides; plant resistance to insects; genetically modified organisms and development of cultural treatments for the conservation of natural enemies and pollinators
Dr. Muhammad Haseeb

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Center for Biological Control, College of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL 32307, USA
Interests: integrated pest management of invasive insects pests; identification and diagnosis; biological control; insect pest modeling and predictions; insect identification; insect detection; insect monitoring and management in specialty crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Warm greetings! We cordially invite you to submit a paper for publication in a Special Issue of MDPI entitled “Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development.”

Under current climate change and growing human populations, the World is heading towards a food crisis and food limitation shocks are occurring. In these circumstances, the maintenance of sustainable food production requires the preservation and restoration of local agroecosystems and crop production.

The promotion of sustainable agriculture is among the goals established by the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Future scenarios predict changes to all living organisms, including effects on tri-trophic interactions between plants, herbivores, and natural enemies. An increase in insect pest populations is expected to reduce food crops qualitatively and quantitatively.

Sustainable agriculture includes integrated pest management (IPM), and biological control is one component of an IPM strategy. Biological control is an environmentally effective method of protecting crops using natural enemies. In this context, the strategic alignment of agriculture with local biodiversity is needed to maintain production systems viable. Macro and microorganisms can be especially beneficial in controlling insect pests due to their specific impacts on the production systems and environment. Sustaining ecosystem services to support natural enemies as biological control agents in agriculture is vital for the economical and social activities of growers, trade, and industry.

We invite relevant works on Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development focusing on conservation or applied control of herbivorous insects and mites using entomopathogens, parasitoids and predators. Studies that use behavioral, biotechnological, ecological, economic, and molecular approaches to biological control are welcome.

We look forward to receiving your contribution to our new Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Marcus Alvarenga Soares
Dr. Muhammad Haseeb
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • allelochemicals
  • augmentation
  • biochemicals
  • bio-industry
  • compatibility with cultural practices
  • conservation
  • efficacy of releases
  • entomopathogens
  • import/export of natural enemies
  • intraguild predation
  • mass production systems
  • parasitoids
  • predators
  • selectivity
  • tri-trophic interactions

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 287 KiB  
Article
Sublethal Effects of Insecticides on the Parasitism of Acerophagus flavidulus (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) Parasitoid of the Obscure Mealybug, Pseudococcus viburni (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae)
by Catalina Radrigán-Navarro and Eduardo Fuentes-Contreras
Sustainability 2024, 16(4), 1478; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16041478 - 09 Feb 2024
Viewed by 643
Abstract
Insecticides used to control agricultural pests can interfere with beneficial arthropods. This study determined the sublethal effects of two insect growth regulators—buprofezin and pyriproxyfen—and the neonicotinoid insecticide acetamiprid on adults of Acerophagus flavidulus (Brethés), a parasitoid of the obscure mealybug, Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret). [...] Read more.
Insecticides used to control agricultural pests can interfere with beneficial arthropods. This study determined the sublethal effects of two insect growth regulators—buprofezin and pyriproxyfen—and the neonicotinoid insecticide acetamiprid on adults of Acerophagus flavidulus (Brethés), a parasitoid of the obscure mealybug, Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret). A. flavidulus was exposed to insecticide residues at the minimum recommended rate of buprofezin and pyriproxyfen (1×) and 0.005× of acetamiprid on apple leaves under laboratory conditions. Each female parasitoid was in contact with the insecticide residues for 24 h and then allowed to parasitize three mealybug densities (two, four, and six nymphs) per parasitoid for 24 h. Parasitism, emergence rate, clutch size, development time, longevity, and secondary sex ratio were evaluated under each insecticide treatment and mealybug density. Application of the growth regulators buprofezin and pyriproxyfen at the labeled rate (1×) induced less sublethal effects than acetamiprid applied at a low rate (0.005×) on A. flavidulus. Pyriproxyfen and acetamiprid reduced parasitism, but they did not affect other aspects of development such as emergence rate, clutch size, development time, longevity, and secondary sex ratio. Our data suggest that buprofezin and pyriproxyfen are more compatible with A. flavidulus than acetamiprid, which could be integrated with parasitoid activity only when low residue levels in the field are attained. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development)
10 pages, 1394 KiB  
Article
Side Effects of Single-Transgene or Pyramided Genetically Modified Maize on the Generalist Endoparasitoid Palmistichus elaeisis (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae)
by Michael Willian Rocha de Souza, Marta Pereira de Andrade, Marinalva Martins dos Santos, Gilson Geraldo Soares de Oliveira Junior, Ricardo Siqueira da Silva, Germano Leão Demolin Leite, José Cola Zanuncio and Marcus Alvarenga Soares
Sustainability 2023, 15(23), 16525; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152316525 - 04 Dec 2023
Viewed by 795
Abstract
The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is an agricultural pest native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, with considerable potential for global invasion and seasonal migration. Although genetically modified (GM) plants have shown positive impacts on the economy [...] Read more.
The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is an agricultural pest native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, with considerable potential for global invasion and seasonal migration. Although genetically modified (GM) plants have shown positive impacts on the economy and the environment as they synthesize proteins that act as natural insecticides and are primarily intended to protect the crops from damage by specific pests, potential effects of Bt toxins on non-target organisms can occur. This experiment aimed to evaluate the potential impacts on the parasitoid Palmistichus elaeisis (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), using the pupae of Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) as hosts, which were fed with transgenic maize genotypes such as Herculex®, expressing Cry1F protein, and PowerCore®, expressing Cry1F, Cry1A.105, and Cry2Ab2 proteins, or their non-transgenic isohybrid. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with ten replicates. Spodoptera frugiperda larvae were fed ad libitum with transgenic and non-transgenic maize until the pupal stage and then individually exposed to six P. elaeisis females for 78 h. The total number of adults, emerged males, tibia size, cephalic capsule size, and parasitoid body size were not influenced by host feeding. However, the number of emerged females from the Herculex® and PowerCore® treatments was lower than that for the isohybrid treatment. The sex ratio and longevity of parasitoids emerging from PowerCore® were 1.05 and 1.26 times lower, respectively, than that of those from the isohybrid. Furthermore, the number of dead P. elaeisis within the host pupa was 10.56 times higher in the PowerCore® genotype. Combining Bt proteins within pyramided genotypes should cause minimal impacts and promote the conservation and integration of beneficial insects. The results of this study provide helpful information for developing effective and compatible integrated pest management (IPM) strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development)
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17 pages, 3211 KiB  
Article
An Interesting Relationship between the Insecticidal Potential of Simarouba sp. in the Biology of Diamondback Moth
by Silvana Aparecida de Souza, Isabella Maria Pompeu Monteiro Padial, Alberto Domingues, Juliana Rosa Carrijo Mauad, Anelise Samara Nazari Formagio, Jaqueline Ferreira Campos, José Bruno Malaquias and Rosilda Mara Mussury
Sustainability 2023, 15(10), 7759; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15107759 - 09 May 2023
Viewed by 1528
Abstract
Alternative methods of insect management are an important field of study for agriculture. The current study aimed to determine the effect of aqueous extracts from Simarouba sp. (AE-S) on the biology of Plutella xylostella and to determine the toxicity of the extract to [...] Read more.
Alternative methods of insect management are an important field of study for agriculture. The current study aimed to determine the effect of aqueous extracts from Simarouba sp. (AE-S) on the biology of Plutella xylostella and to determine the toxicity of the extract to the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (an important in vivo alternative assay system for toxicological study). Lyophilized AE-S was chemically investigated by Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). We evaluated the effect of the botanical extract on the life cycle of P. xylostella, from larval stage to adult stage, at concentrations of 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.05%, and 0.01% and a control. Subsequently, we analyzed the toxicity of the extract in an in vivo model. AE-S showed high amount of phenolic and flavonoid compounds. Six compounds were identified based on UHPLC-MS/MS analysis, including flavanone, kaempferol, 4,5-dimethoxycanthin-6-one, 11-acetylamarolide, ailanthinone, and glaucarubinone. The median lethal time for P. xylostella was estimated to be 96 h in all concentrations of AE-S, and at 120 h, 100% of the individuals were dead. Larvae exposed to AE-S at concentrations of 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1% showed a reduction in leaf area consumption, underdevelopment, and reductions in movement and pupal biomass. The lowest concentrations of AE-S (0.1%, 0.05%, and 0.01%) did not cause mortality in nematodes. Thus, the aqueous extract of Simarouba sp. could be an effective control tool because it mainly acts in the larval stage, the stage at which the insect causes damage to brassicaceae. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biological Pest Control and Sustainable Agricultural Development)
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