Biological control is an important ecosystem service delivered by natural enemies. Together with breeding for plant defence, it constitutes one of the most promising alternatives to pesticides for controlling herbivores in sustainable crop production. Especially induced plant defences may be promising targets in plant breeding for resistance against arthropod pests. Because they are activated u...

Understanding how and why insect numbers fluctuate through time and space has been a central theme in ecological research for more than a century. Life tables have been used to understand temporal and spatial patterns in insect numbers. In this study, we estimated cause-of-death probabilities for phytophagous insects using multiple decrement life tables and the irreplaceable mortality analytic ...

Empirical research has not supported the prediction that populations of terrestrial herbivorous arthropods are regulated solely by their natural enemies. Instead, both natural enemies (top-down effects) and resources (bottom-up effects) may play important regulatory roles. This review evaluates the hypothesis that higher-order predators may constrain the top-down control of herbivore population...

This report describes a rare case of acquired Ondine's curse. The patient developed central sleep apnea syndrome named Ondine's curse after a brainstem infarction. Lesions involving the descending medullocervical pathways that subserve automatic breathing can result in this syndrome.

Aphids are a major concern in agricultural crops worldwide, and control by natural enemies is an essential component of the ecological intensification of agriculture. Although the complexity of agricultural landscapes is known to influence natural enemies of pests, few studies have measured the degree of pest control by different enemy guilds across gradients in landscape complexity. Here, we u...

The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is an economically important pest in the north central United States. In the state of Iowa, economically damaging populations occurred in seven of 11 growing seasons from 2001 to 2011. The high frequency and economic impact of the soybean aphid makes it an ideal candidate for management by using host plant resistance. We compar...