The integration of chemical and biological control of arthropod pests.

Abstract

The desirability of integrating chemical and biological control of arthro­ pod pests is not a new idea in the field of applied entomology. Recurrently over the years, investigators have expressed a need for the preservation, augmentation, and utilization of entomophagous and entomogenous organ­ isms in overall pest control programs involving chemical control (14, 34, 63, 69, 70, 76, 77, 88, 109, 116, 117, 119). However, these were sporadic pleas and it was not until the last decade that the call for integrated control swelled to a chorus. Now, a band wagon of rather respectable proportions seems to have developed in support of this approach to arthropod pest con­ trol. As a point of illustration, in the most recent numbers of the Journal of Economic Entomology, a significant percentage of the articles have dealt with or alluded to integrated control. (Six of 51 papers in Volume 54, No.1.) The factors contributing to this trend seem directly related to the mani­ fold secondary problems associated with the extensive use of the new, widely toxic synthetic organic insecticides. Prior to the organic insecticide era, entomologists working with the arsenicals, botanicals, petroleum oils, lime sulfur, and the few other materials available to them, inadvertently effected large-scale integrated control. This came about because the methods of entry and chemical and physical characteristics of these materials limited their toxicity to a relatively small number of arthropods, and they did not have the disruptive effects to arthropod ecosystems that the new broad spectrum synthetic chemicals do. As a result, the problems of insecticide resistance, pest flarebacks, and secondary pest outbreaks that have come to plague the organic insecticides were not nearly as severe and general as they are today. Consequently, there was no great concern over, or even aware­ ness of the potential disruptiveness of insecticides to arthropod ecosystems. Thus, with little reason for apprehension other than matters related to mammalian toxicity, pollinator mortality, and possibly resistance, the organic insecticides were almost universally accepted as unmixed blessings. With rare exceptions, those persons associated with arthropod pest control crossed