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This document discusses pests and pest control. It defines pests as organisms that interfere with humans or economic activities. Pest control aims to protect food, health, and convenience. Chemical pesticides have been widely used and brought successes like reducing diseases, but they also cause problems. Pests become resistant over time, requiring more pesticides, and their overuse can harm ecosystems and have health impacts. Integrated pest management takes an ecological approach using chemical and natural methods for long-term control while minimizing environmental impacts.
This document discusses pests and pest control. It defines pests as organisms that interfere with humans or economic activities. Pest control aims to protect food, health, and convenience. Chemical pesticides have been widely used and brought successes like reducing diseases, but they also cause problems. Pests become resistant over time, requiring more pesticides, and their overuse can harm ecosystems and have health impacts. Integrated pest management takes an ecological approach using chemical and natural methods for long-term control while minimizing environmental impacts.
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This document discusses pests and pest control. It defines pests as organisms that interfere with humans or economic activities. Pest control aims to protect food, health, and convenience. Chemical pesticides have been widely used and brought successes like reducing diseases, but they also cause problems. Pests become resistant over time, requiring more pesticides, and their overuse can harm ecosystems and have health impacts. Integrated pest management takes an ecological approach using chemical and natural methods for long-term control while minimizing environmental impacts.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formati disponibili
Scarica in formato DOC, PDF, TXT o leggi online su Scribd
I. Pest – any organism that is noxious, destructive, or troublesome. This definition includes a broad variety of organisms that interfere with humans or with our social or economic endeavors. A. Agricultural pests are organisms that feed on ornamental plants or agricultural crops and animals. B. Weeds – plants that compete with agricultural crops, forests, and forage grasses for light and nutrients. C. Bringing these pests under control has three main purposes: to protect our food, to protect our health, and for convenience. II. Pesticides are vital elements in the prevention of the diseases that kill and incapacitate humans. In addition to having agricultural use, pesticides have become important public-health tools used to combat diseases. A. Herbicides – chemicals that kill plants B. Pesticides – chemicals that kill animals and insects considered to be pests C. Worldwide, 5.05 billion pounds of pesticides were used in 2001. D. Insects, plant pathogens, and weeds destroy an estimated 37% of potential agricultural production in the US. many of the changes in agricultural technology, such as monoculture and the widespread use of genetically identical crops, which have boosted yields, have also brought on an increase in the proportion of crops lost to pests. III. Chemical treatment seeks a “magic bullet” that will eradicate or greatly lessen the numbers of the pest organism. Although it has had much success, this approach gives only short-term protection. A. Chemicals often have side effects that are damaging to other organisms IV. Ecological control seeks to give long-lasting protection by developing control agents on the basis of knowledge of the pest’s life cycle and of ecological relationships. A. Such agents work in one of two ways: either they are highly specific for the pest species being fought, or they manipulate one or more aspects of the ecosystem. B. Ecological control emphasizes the protection of people and domestic plants and animals from damage from pests, rather than eradication of the pest organism. C. Integrated pest management is an approach to controlling pest populations by using all suitable methods—chemical and ecological—in a way that brings about long-term management of pest populations and also has minimal environmental impact.
16.2 Promises and Problems of the Chemical Approach
Development of Chemical Pesticides and Their Successes I. The early substances –first generation pesticides--used included toxic heavy metals. Scientists now recognize that these substances may accumulate in soils, inhibit plant growth, and poison animals and humans. In addition, toxic heavy metals lose their effectiveness as pests become increasingly resistant to them. A. Second-generation pesticides were based in the science of organic chemistry. They were developed as a result of synthetic organic chemistry. B. DDT is a broad-spectrum pesticide, meaning that it can kill a multitude of insect pests. It is also persistent, meaning that it does not break down readily in the environment and hence provided lasting protection. It has greatly reduced cases of typhus and malaria. C. After WWII, DDT was sprayed on forests, suburbs, and salt marshes to control insects. In the short run, many crop yields increased dramatically. Crops could now be grown in warmer and moister regions and could be more resistant and productive. Problems Stemming from Chemical Pesticide Use I. The most fundamental problem for growers is that chemical pesticides gradually lose their effectiveness. Over the years, it becomes necessary to use larger and larger quantities, to try new and more potent pesticides, or to do both to obtain the same degree of control. A. Resistance builds up because pesticides destroy the sensitive individuals of a pest population, leaving behind only those few that already have some resistance to the pesticide. B. Resistant insect populations develop rapidly because insects have a high reproductive capacity. Consequently, repeated pesticide applications result in the unwitting selection and breeding of genetic lines that are highly resistant to the chemicals that were designed to eliminate them. C. When one pesticide is used extensively, resistance is virtually inevitable. Over the years of pesticide use, the number of resistant species has climbed steadily. D. As a pest population becomes resistant to one pesticide, it also may gain resistance to other, unrelated pesticides. II. The second problem with the use of synthetic organic pesticides is that after a pest has been virtually eliminated with a pesticide, the pest population not only recovers, but explodes to higher and more severe levels. This phenomenon is known as resurgence. A. Small populations of insects that were previously of no concern because of their low numbers suddenly start to explode, creating new problems. This phenomenon is known as secondary-pest outbreak. The species appearing in secondary-pest outbreaks quickly become resistant to pesticides. B. The chemical approach fails because it ignores basic ecological principles. It assumes that the ecosystem is a static entity in which one species can simply be eliminated. In reality, the ecosystem is a dynamic system of interactions, and a chemical assault on one species will inevitably perturb the system and produce other, undesirable effects. C. The term pesticide treadmill refers to attempts to eradicate pests with synthetic organic chemicals. In this system, chemicals do not eradicate the pests; instead, they increase resistance and secondary-pest outbreaks, which lead to the use of new and larger quantities of chemicals. III. Pesticides can be responsible for both acute and chronic health effects. A. Because of the wide-ranging use of pesticides by most farmers, consumers are inevitably exposed to pesticide residues on their food. Also, many occupational exposures to pesticides are subacute. The public-health concern is that the pesticides might have chronic effects, even at low levels of exposure. B. Among the chronic effects of pesticides is the potential for causing cancer, dermatitis, neurological disorders, birth defects, and infertility. Tests have shown that a number of pesticides interfere with reproductive hormones.
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