Fundamental knowledge about insect reproduction: essential to develop sustainable pest management

Abstract

Summary Studies on insect reproduction in The Netherlands concern long-term projects on (a) the relationship between diapause and reproduction, (b) endocrinology and reproduction, (c) the relationship between food and reproduction, and more recently on (d) the background and evolution of parthenogenetic reproduction, (e) the link between reproduction and blood and sugar feeding in mosquitoes, and (f) the role of male sex-peptides in reproduction and mate protection. Examples of this work are presented and the importance of these fundamental studies to applied work will be discussed. At universities, curiosity-driven pure research on reproduction should have the first priority and this type of research will almost always result in applications, as we have experienced in insect pest management. Modern agriculture leads to serious environmental problems, human health problems and a dramatic reduction in biodiversity, as a result of intensive fertilizer use and frequent application of chemical pesticides. Pure scientific research in insect reproduction is enabling us to find unexpected solutions for crop protection problems in current agriculture; for example, we have helped to develop (a) programs with greatly reduced applications of conventional chemicals based on our diapause work, (b) selective chemical control with insect growth regulators based on endocrinological studies, and (c) more economic biological control programs based on diapause and parthenogenesis studies.