Malaria control is reliant on the use of long-lasting pyrethroid-impregnated nets and/or indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticide. The rapid selection and spread of operationally significant pyrethroid resistance in African malaria vectors threatens our ability to sustain malaria control. Establishing whether resistance is operationally significant is technically challenging. Routine monit...

Spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is an invasive pest with devastating effects on soft-skinned fruits including blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and cherries. Due to zero tolerance of SWD infested fruit in both fresh and frozen markets, current SWD management strategies usually focus on preventive broad-spectrum insecticide sprays. Growers and extension educators across the Uni...

Climatic, sociological and environmental conditions are known to affect the spatial distribution of malaria vectors and disease transmission. Intensive use of insecticides in the agricultural and public health sectors exerts a strong selective pressure on resistance genes in malaria vectors. Spatio-temporal models of favorable conditions for Anopheles species' presence were developed to estimat...

The selection of insecticide resistance in malaria vectors has the potential to compromise any insecticide-based vector control programme. To ensure that the insecticides used for indoor residual spraying and insecticide-treated nets in Zambia remain effective and their choice is evidence based, insecticide resistance surveillance and monitoring are essential. This study assessed and compared t...

The carmine spider mite (CSM), Tetranychus cinnabarinus, is an important pest mite in agriculture, because it can develop insecticide resistance easily. To gain valuable gene information and molecular basis for the future insecticide resistance study of CSM, the first transcriptome analysis of CSM was conducted. A total of 45,016 contigs and 25,519 unigenes were generated from the de novo trans...

Soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is one of the most damaging pests of soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merrill, in the midwestern United States and Canada. We compared three soybean aphid management techniques in three midwestern states (Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota) for a 3-yr period (2005-2007). Management techniques included an untreated control, an insecticidal seed...

Simplification of agricultural landscapes is expected to have positive effects on many crop pests and negative effects on their natural enemies, potentially leading to increased pest pressure, decreased crop yield, and increased insecticide use. While many intermediate links in this causal chain have empirical support, there is mixed evidence for ultimate relationships between landscape simplif...

Background: Insecticide-treated nets represent currently a key malaria control strategy, but low insecticide re-treatment rates remain problematic. OlysetTM nets are currently one of two longlasting insecticidal nets recommended by WHO. An assessment was carried out of the effect of OlysetTM nets after seven years of use in rural Tanzania. Methods: A survey of OlysetTM nets was conducted in two...

Insecticides are the most important component in insect pest-control efforts worldwide. Pyrethroids are among the insecticides that have been most widely used for this purpose for many years because of their safe, cheap, effective and long-lasting nature (Bulter et al. 2011). However, the widespread development of insecticide resistance, especially pyrethroid resistance, and the fact that resis...