Chapter 16 - Biotechnological Approaches for Insect Pest Management

Abstract

Biotechnology provides ample opportunities for effective and targeted insect-pest control through critical analysis and engineering of biological processes. This chapter describes widely accepted approaches that have been broadly accepted for the characterization of insect pests as well as their field control. The success of these approaches has utilized various tools and techniques of genetic engineering, molecular biology and plant biotechnology. In addition to Bt-toxin genes, which have been widely accepted in insect pest control, a range of alternative genes have also become available for exploitation as biological weapons against other insect-pest species. Most of these genes find utility through transgenic plants, but others find application in improving the performance of different biocontrol agents including microbial species and natural enemies. In this respect, metabolomics, providing molecular dissection of metabolic pathways for identifying vital genes, also offers a means for specific dis-functioning of these genes to cause mortality in individual insect species.