Biological Control as Biotechnological Amelioration and Ecosystem Intensification in Managed Ecosystems

Abstract

Pest management is a critical component of both agricultural and forestry production systems and for human health. In the 20th century, chemical pesticides became increasingly sophisticated as the standard control measures. However, other approaches, such as biological control, were also developed and in the 21st century more and more advocated as viable options to chemicals. Biological control agents are living organisms (or parts of living organisms) that interfere with the productivity of other living organisms. In terms of biotechnology, biological control agents are used by human beings for the protection of resources that they want. Biological control agents encompass a wide range of organisms from vertebrates, insects, mites, plants, fungi, bacteria, to viruses as well as, in the broad sense, natural chemicals. Biological control programs have been successfully used to control noxious weeds, plant pathogens, and invertebrate and vertebrate pests of crops, livestock, and human beings. Production, deployment, and establishment of biological control agents are important parameters in determining the success of these agents for pest management. Such programs include the use of mixed cropping, interplantings (companion plantings), uses of mulches with or without pest controlling natural chemicals and breakdown products, predators, parasitoids, parasites, and pest pathogens. Moreover, they include consideration, encouragement, protection and management of the biocontrol agents themselves. Those concepts and strategies are well used in so-called integrated pest management (IPM) and organic agriculture. Also, recent advances in genetic engineering have incorporated some biological control agents, such as Bacillus thuringiensis, into the genomes of crops. Biological control agents are mostly derived from the complex natural ecosystem and can be regarded as biotechnology practiced within, and at the level of, relatively simple anthropogenic ecosystems. The application of biological control technology for food and fiber protection and production, and for human health, can be considered under the umbrella of “ecological intensification” which mostly aims to manage biodiversity and ecosystem processes for sustainability of food and fiber production. Public concern for healthy food without synthetic chemical residues, for the conservation of natural ecosystem services, and the modern rapid expansion of organic farming all point to the need for increased scientific attention to, risk assessment of, and investment in, biological control as a form of biotechnological amelioration in managed ecosystems through applied ecology.