Pest Regulation Research Articles

Modelling shifts between mono- and multifunctional farming systems: the importance of social and economic drivers

ContextIn Europe, policy measures are starting to emerge that promote multifunctional farming systems and delivery of ecosystem services besides food production. Effectiveness of these policy instruments have to deal with ecological, economic and social complexities and with complexities in individual decisions of local actors leading to system shifts.ObjectiveThe objective of this paper is to discover the most important social and/or economic drivers that cause farm systems to shift between a monofunctional (providing food) and a multifunctional state (providing food and natural pest regulation).MethodsUsing a cellular automata model, we simulated decisions of individual farmers to shift between a mono-and multifunctional state through time, based on their behaviour type and on financial and social consequences. Collaboration of multifunctional farmers at a landscape scale is a precondition to provide a reliable level of natural pest regulation.ResultsCosts of applying green infrastructure was an important driver for the size and the conversion rate of shifts between mono-and multifunctional farming systems. Shifts towards multifunctional farming were enhanced by a higher motivation of farmers to produce sustainably, while shifts (back) to a monofunctional state was enhanced by a low social cohesion between multifunctional farmers.ConclusionsThese results suggest that in order to develop a multifunctional farming system, individual farmers should act counterintuitively to their conventional farming environment. To maintain a multifunctional farming system, social cohesion between multifunctional farmers is most relevant. Financial aspects are important in both shifts.

Balancing competition for resources with multiple pest regulation in diversified agroecosystems: a process‐based approach to reconcile diversification and productivity

Agroecosystem plant diversification can enhance pest biological regulation and is a promising alternative to pesticide application. However, the costs of competition for resources between plants may exceed the benefits gained by pest regulation. To disentangle the interactions between pest regulation and competition, we developed a generic process‐based approach that accounts for the effects of an associated plant and leaf and root pests on biomass production. We considered three crop–plant associations that differ in competition profiles, and we simulated biomass production under wide ranges of both pest regulation rates and resources’ availability. We analyzed outputs to quantify the pest regulation service level that would be required to attain monoculture yield and other production goals. Results showed that pest regulation requirements were highly dependent on the profile of resource interception of the associated plant and on resources’ availability. Pest regulation and the magnitude of competition between plants interacted in determining the balance between nitrogen and radiation uptake by the crop. Our findings suggest that productivity of diversified agroecosystems relative to monoculture should be optimized by assembling plants whose characteristics balance crops’ resource acquisition. The theoretical insights from our study draw generic rules for vegetation assemblage to optimize trade‐offs between pest regulation and production. Our findings and approach may have implications in understanding, theorizing and implementing agroecosystem diversification. By its generic and adaptable structure, our approach should be useful for studying the effects of diversification in many agroecosystems.

Dominance in a ground-dwelling ant community of banana agroecosystem.

In tropical ecosystems, ants represent a substantial portion of the animal biomass and contribute to various ecosystem services, including pest regulation and pollination. Dominant ant species are known to determine the structure of ant communities by interfering in the foraging of other ant species. Using bait and pitfall trapping experiments, we performed a pattern analysis at a fine spatial scale of an ant community in a very simplified and homogeneous agroecosystem, that is, a single‐crop banana field in Martinique (French West Indies). We found that the community structure was driven by three dominant species (Solenopsis geminata, Nylanderia guatemalensis, and Monomorium ebeninum) and two subdominant species (Pheidole fallax and Brachymyrmex patagonicus). Our results showed that dominant and subdominant species generally maintained numerical dominance at baits across time, although S. geminata, M. ebeninum, and B. patagonicus displayed better abilities to maintain dominance than P. fallax and N. guatemalensis. Almost all interspecific correlations between species abundances, except those between B. patagonicus and N. guatemalensis, were symmetrically negative, suggesting that interference competition prevails in this ground‐dwelling ant community. However, we observed variations in the diurnal and nocturnal foraging activity and in the daily occurrence at baits, which may mitigate the effect of interference competition through the induction of spatial and temporal niche partitioning. This may explain the coexistence of dominant, subdominant, and subordinate species in this very simplified agroecosystem, limited in habitat structure and diversity.

Pest regulation and support of natural enemies in agriculture: Experimental evidence of within field wildflower strips

Restoring ecosystem services in agriculture is vital to reach a sustainable food production. More specifically, developing farming practices which enhance biological pest control is a main issue for today’s agriculture. The aim of this study was to assess whether the two strategies of complicating the search of host plants by pests by increasing plant diversity, and of supporting their natural enemies by managing habitats, could be combined simultaneously at the field scale to restore biological pest control and reduce chemical insecticide use. In Gembloux (Belgium), wildflower strips (WFS) were sown within wheat crops in which pests (i.e., aphids), their predators (i.e. aphidophagous hoverflies, lacewings and ladybeetles) and parasitoid wasps were monitored for 10 weeks in the period of May through July 2015 as indicators of the ES of pest control. Aphids were significantly reduced and adult hoverflies favoured in wheat in between WFS, compared to monoculture wheat plots. No significant differences were observed for adult lacewings, ladybeetles and parasitoids. In all treatments, very few lacewing and ladybeetle larvae were observed on wheat tillers. The abundance of hoverfly larvae was positively correlated with the aphid density on tillers in between WFS, showing that increasing food provisions by multiplying habitats within fields, and not only along margins, can help supporting aphidophagous hoverflies in crops. By enhancing the ecosystem services of biological pest control, this study shows that increasing both plant diversity and managing habitats for natural enemies may reduce aphid populations, hence insecticide use. Future research should continue this vein of work by quantifying the link between agricultural practices and the delivery of ecosystem services in order to guide future measures of agricultural policies.

Payments discourage coordination in ecosystem services provision: evidence from behavioral experiments in Southeast Asia

The contribution of synthetic pesticides to closing yield gaps around the world is undeniable; however, their use is also a classic double-edged sword. Beyond the well-recognized social costs (e.g., pollution to soil and water, and health effects both on consumers and other species) there are also private costs on farmers beyond the direct costs of inputs, associated with elevated risks of both acute and chronic damage to farmers’ health, and with the destruction of populations of beneficial organisms. Managing agricultural land use to enhance natural pest control services (also called mobile agent-based ecosystem services or MABES) holds promise to reduce this growing reliance on pesticides, though it too carries costs. In particular, uncertainty in crop yield due to pest damages, as well as the need to coordinate pesticide use with neighboring farms, can be important obstacles to establishing the longer-term public good of natural pest regulation. Current thinking on promoting ecosystem services suggests that payments or other economic incentives are a good fit for the promotion of public good ecosystem services such as MABES. We undertook a framed field experiment to examine the role of subsidies for non-crop habitat in improving insect-based ecosystem services in two separate samples in Southeast Asia—Cambodia and Vietnam. Our central finding is that these two contexts are not poised equally to benefit from incentives promoting MABES, and in fact may be left worse off by payments schemes. As the study and practice of payments for ecosystem services programs grows, this finding provides an important qualifier on recent theory supporting the use of payments to promote public good ecosystem services—where the nature of the coordination problem is complex and nonlinear, farm systems can be made worse off by being encouraged to attempt it.

Evaluating pest-regulating services under conservation agriculture: A case study in snap beans

Although conservation agriculture (CA) practices including strip-tillage (ST) and cover cropping are promoted largely for their potential benefits for soil quality, uncertainty surrounding their short-term effects on pests often constrains adoption. Quantification of ecosystem services or dis-services associated with pests is an important step in identifying research and policy priorities for improving the performance of CA practices. Using insect, weed and yield data from snap beans in a three year vegetable rotation, we estimated the value of pest-regulating services associated with the adoption of CA, and compared it to establishment and management costs associated with implementing CA.Experimental factors included tillage (full-width tillage [FWT] or ST), cover crops (winter rye [R] or none [NR]) and weed management intensity (low or high). The value of pest-regulating services associated with adoption of CA practices was estimated based on pesticide cost savings associated with reductions in pest densities given action thresholds typical of commercial snap bean production in the North Central United States. CA practices had no detectable impact on snap bean yields relative to FWT-NR, but resulted in significant tradeoffs in weed and insect abundance. For example, in at least one of two years, ST-R had lower densities of potato leafhopper, Powell amaranth and winter annual weeds, but greater densities of tarnished plant bug and large crabgrass compared to FWT-NR. CA practices had variable effects on natural enemies including ladybeetles, spiders and parasitoids, with no consistent impacts relative to FWT-NR. We estimated that CA practices resulted in net pest-regulating dis-services with costs of $33ha−1 for FWT-R, $25ha−1 for ST-NR, and $14ha−1 for ST-R. Under partial adoption of CA (ST-NR), pest-related costs were completely offset by savings in tillage costs, resulting in estimated short-term increases in net returns of $26ha−1. In contrast, complete adoption of CA (ST-R) resulted in greater pest and cover crop management costs that outweighed savings due to reduced tillage, resulting in estimated short-term losses of $165ha−1. In production systems for which effective, low-cost pesticides are unavailable (e.g. low-income countries) or prohibited (e.g. organic systems), the economic impact of pest regulation services is likely to be greater than our estimates suggest. Although CA practices provide several potential long-term ecosystem services at both the farm and landscape level, short-term impacts on pests and yields relative to the costs of implementation are likely to be the major determinant of grower adoption.

Effects of shade, altitude and management on multiple ecosystem services in coffee agroecosystems

Agroforestry systems provide diverse ecosystem services that contribute to farmer livelihoods and the conservation of natural resources. Despite these known benefits, there is still limited understanding on how shade trees affect the provision of multiple ecosystem services at the same time and the potential trade-offs or synergies among them. To fill this knowledge gap, we quantified four major ecosystem services (regulation of pests and diseases; provisioning of agroforestry products; maintenance of soil fertility; and carbon sequestration) in 69 coffee agroecosystems belonging to smallholder farmers under a range of altitudes (as representative of environmental conditions) and management conditions, in the region of Turrialba, Costa Rica. We first analyzed the individual effects of altitude, types of shade and management intensity and their interactions on the provision of ecosystem services. In order to identify potential trade-offs and synergies, we then analyzed bivariate relationships between different ecosystem services, and between individual ecosystem services and plant biodiversity. We also explored which types of shade provided better levels of ecosystem services. The effectiveness of different types of shade in providing ecosystem services depended on their interactions with altitude and coffee management, with different ecosystem services responding differently to these factors. No trade-offs were found among the different ecosystem services studied or between ecosystem services and biodiversity, suggesting that it is possible to increase the provision of multiple ecosystem services at the same time. Overall, both low and highly diversified coffee agroforestry systems had better ability to provide ecosystem services than coffee monocultures in full sun. Based on our findings, we suggest that coffee agroforestry systems should be designed with diversified, productive shade canopies and managed with a medium intensity of cropping practices, with the aim of ensuring the continued provision of multiple ecosystem services.

Does the recoupling of dairy and crop production via cooperation between farms generate environmental benefits? A case-study approach in Europe

The intensification of agriculture in Europe has contributed significantly to the decline of mixed crop-livestock farms in favour of specialised farms. Specialisation, when accompanied by intensive farming practices, leaves farms poorly equipped to sustainably manage by-products of production, capture beneficial ecological interactions, and adapt in a volatile economic climate. An often proposed solution to overcome these environmental and economic constraints is to recouple crop and livestock production via cooperation between specialised farms. If well-managed, synergies between crop and livestock production beyond farm level have the potential to improve feed and fertiliser autonomy, and pest regulation. However, strategies currently used by farmers to recouple dairy livestock and crop production are poorly documented; there is a need to better assess these strategies using empirical farm data. In this paper, we employed farm surveys to describe, analyse and assess the following strategies: (1) Local exchange of materials among dairy and arable farms; (2) Land renting between dairy and arable farms; (3) Animal exchanges between lowland and mountainous areas; and (4) Industrially mediated transfers of dehydrated fodder. For each strategy, cooperating farm groups were compared to non-cooperating farm groups using indicators of metabolic performance (input autonomy, nutrient cycling and use efficiency), and ecosystem services provision. The results indicate that recoupling of crop and dairy production through farm cooperation gives farmers access to otherwise inaccessible or underutilised local resources such as land, labour, livestock feed or organic nutrients. This in turn leads to additional outlets for by-products (e.g. animal manure). Farmers’ decisions about how to allocate the additional resources accessed via cooperation essentially determine if the farm diversifies, intensifies or expands operations. The key finding is that in three of the four crop-livestock integration strategies assessed, these newly accessed resources facilitated more intensive farming practices (e.g. higher stocking rate or number of milking cows per hectare) on cooperating dairy farms relative to non-cooperating, specialised dairy farms. As a consequence, cooperation was accompanied by limited environmental benefits but helped to improve resource use efficiency per unit of agricultural product produced. This article provides a critical step toward understanding real-world results of crop-livestock cooperation beyond the farm level relative to within-farm crop-livestock integration. As such, it brings practical knowledge of vital importance for policy making to promote sustainable farming.

Structure, function and management of semi-natural habitats for conservation biological control: a review of European studies.

Different semi-natural habitats occur on farmland, and it is the vegetation's traits and structure that subsequently determine their ability to support natural enemies and their associated contribution to conservation biocontrol. New habitats can be created and existing ones improved with agri-environment scheme funding in all EU member states. Understanding the contribution of each habitat type can aid the development of conservation control strategies. Here we review the extent to which the predominant habitat types in Europe support natural enemies, whether this results in enhanced natural enemy densities in the adjacent crop and whether this leads to reduced pest densities. Considerable variation exists in the available information for the different habitat types and trophic levels. Natural enemies within each habitat were the most studied, with less information on whether they were enhanced in adjacent fields, while their impact on pests was rarely investigated. Most information was available for woody and herbaceous linear habitats, yet not for woodland which can be the most common semi-natural habitat in many regions. While the management and design of habitats offer potential to stimulate conservation biocontrol, we also identified knowledge gaps. A better understanding of the relationship between resource availability and arthropod communities across habitat types, the spatiotemporal distribution of resources in the landscape and interactions with other factors that play a role in pest regulation could contribute to an informed management of semi-natural habitats for biocontrol. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

The Role Of Predatory Beetles In Density Regulation Of Xylophagous Pests In Forests And Orchards Of Azerbaijan

The Role Of Predatory Beetles In Density Regulation Of Xylophagous Pests In Forests And Orchards Of Azerbaijan

What works in conservation? Using expert assessment of summarised evidence to identify practices that enhance natural pest control in agriculture.

This paper documents an exercise to synthesize and assess the best available scientific knowledge on the effectiveness of different farm practices at enhancing natural pest regulation in agriculture. It demonstrates a novel combination of three approaches to evidence synthesis—systematic literature search, collated synopsis and evidence assessment using an expert panel. These approaches follow a logical sequence moving from a large volume of disparate evidence to a simple, easily understandable answer for use in policy or practice. The example of natural pest regulation in agriculture was selected as a case study within two independent science-policy interface projects, one European and one British. A third funder, a private business, supported the final stage to translate the synthesized findings into a useful, simplified output for agronomists. As a whole, the case study showcases how a network of scientific knowledge holders and knowledge users can work together to improve the use of science in policy and practice. The process identified five practices with good evidence of a benefit to natural pest regulation, with the most beneficial being ‘Combine trap and repellent crops in a push–pull system’. It highlights knowledge gaps, or potential research priorities, by showing practices considered important by stakeholders for which there is not enough evidence to make an assessment of effects on natural pest regulation, including ‘Alter the timing of pesticide application.’ Finally, the process identifies several important practices where the volume of evidence of effects on natural pest regulation was too large (>300 experimental studies) to be summarised with the resources available, and for which focused systematic reviews may be the best approach. These very well studied practices include ‘Reduce tillage’ and ‘Plant more than one crop per field’.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10531-016-1133-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Interceptações de pragas quarentenárias e ausentes não regulamentadas em material vegetal importado

Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar as informações qualitativas e quantitativas sobre as interceptações de pragas ausentes não regulamentadas e quarentenárias em material vegetal importado. As informações sobre interceptações de pragas pelo serviço de quarentena vegetal da Embrapa, no período de 1977 a 2013, foram obtidas em um banco de dados, atas laboratoriais e listas de interceptação publicadas. As interceptações foram analisadas de acordo com regulamentação das pragas, espécie vegetal, parte vegetal importada e origem. O material foi categorizado em sementes botânicas e material de propagação vegetativa. No período do levantamento, foram interceptadas 75 espécies de pragas em 114 eventos de interceptação. Fungos, vírus e ácaros constituem a maior parte das interceptações, e a maioria delas ocorreu em lírio, oliveira, trigo, uva, arroz, batata e maçã. A taxa média anual de infestação/infecção do material vegetal analisado é de 2% dos processos de importação. O material para propagação vegetativa apresentou maior taxa de infestação/infecção por pragas do que as sementes botânicas. Das espécies-pragas interceptadas, 63% não são regulamentadas como quarentenárias para o Brasil. Esses resultados indicam a necessidade premente de revisão da atual lista de pragas quarentenárias do País.

Organic farming and landscape factors affect abundance and richness of hoverflies (Diptera, Syrphidae) in grasslands

Abstract Hoverflies provide ecosystem services including pollination, pest regulation and waste decomposition, but not enough is known about how they are influenced by organic farming and landscape composition, and structure to effectively manage them in different landscapes. By conducting transect walks and pan‐trapping, we investigated how hoverfly abundance/richness were related to organic farming, floral abundance, land‐use cover and hedgerows in nine pairs of organic and conventional dairy farms in the Republic of Ireland. We found more flowers on organic farms which attracted more hoverfly species. Organic farming also increased hoverfly abundance and richness beyond the benefits from increased floral resources, indicating that other organic management practices benefit hoverflies. This was evident regardless of the surrounding landscape composition. Hoverfly abundance and richness were most strongly related to land use within 4 km around sites, indicating the importance of large spatial scales. Homogenous grassland landscapes (i.e. high grassland cover) supported higher hoverfly abundance and richness, possibly because they contain abundant macrohabitats suitable for the proliferation of grassland hoverflies. Hedgerow structure was also important, with hoverfly abundances greater on sites surrounded by a higher total cover of hedgerows, but with lower total hedgerow lengths (i.e. greater hedgerow volumes) within 1 km. Our findings illustrate complex relationships between hoverflies and local and landscape factors, and they contrast with previous findings for other pollinators. We encourage increased floral resources and organic farming as a means of conserving hoverflies in grassland systems. Future management of grassland hoverflies needs to account for large spatial scales and the possibility that hedgerows greatly impact hoverfly diversity in hedgerow‐dominated landscapes.

Current approaches neglect possible agricultural cutback under large-scale organic farming. A comment to Ponisio et al.

Agricultural productivity is the key to global food security. Modern conventional farming has substantially increased food production, but at the expense of serious environmental harm [[1][1]]. By contrast, organic production is regarded as a suitable and more sustainable alternative owing to its

Landscape effects on the abundance and larval diet of the polyphagous pest Helicoverpa armigera in cotton fields in North Benin.

The noctuid Helicoverpa armigera is one of the key cotton pests in the Old World. One possible pest regulation method may be the management of host crop in the landscapes. For polyphagous pests such as H. armigera, crop diversity and rotations can offer sequential and alternate resources that may enhance abundance. We explore the impact of landscape composition and host crop diversity on the abundance and natal host plant use of H. armigera in northern Benin. Host plant diversity at the largest scale examined (500 m diameter) was positively correlated with H. armigera abundance. Host plant diversity and the cover of tomato crops were the most important variables in relation to high abundance of H. armigera. Host plant (cotton, maize, tomato, sorghum) proportions and C3 versus C4 plants did not consistently correlate positively with H. armigera abundance. Moth proportion derived from cotton-fed larvae was low, 15% in 2011 and 11% in 2012, and not significantly related to H. armigera abundance. Cotton crop cover was not significantly related to H. armigera abundance and may be considered as a sink crop. Landscape composition and sequential availability of host plants should be considered as keys factors for further studies on H. armigera regulation. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.

Response of pest control by generalist predators to local-scale plant diversity: a meta-analysis.

Disentangling the effects of plant diversity on the control of herbivores is important for understanding agricultural sustainability. Recent studies have investigated the relationships between plant diversity and arthropod communities at the landscape scale, but few have done so at the local scale. We conducted a meta-analysis of 32 papers containing 175 independent measures of the relationship between plant diversity and arthropod communities. We found that generalist predators had a strong positive response to plant diversity, that is, their abundance increased as plant diversity increased. Herbivores, in contrast, had an overall weak and negative response to plant diversity. However, specialist and generalist herbivores differed in their response to plant diversity, that is, the response was negative for specialists and not significant for generalists. While the effects of scale remain unclear, the response to plant diversity tended to increase for specialist herbivores, but decrease for generalist herbivores as the scale increased. There was no clear effect of scale on the response of generalist predators to plant diversity. Our results suggest that the response of herbivores to plant diversity at the local scale is a balance between habitat and trophic effects that vary according to arthropod specialization and habitat type. Synthesis and applications. Positive effects of plant diversity on generalist predators confirm that, at the local scale, plant diversification of agroecosystems is a credible and promising option for increasing pest regulation. Results from our meta-analysis suggest that natural control in plant-diversified systems is more likely to occur for specialist than for generalist herbivores. In terms of pest management, our results indicate that small-scale plant diversification (via the planting of cover crops or intercrops and reduced weed management) is likely to increase the control of specialist herbivores by generalist predators.

Strong and nonlinear effects of fragmentation on ecosystem service provision at multiple scales

Human actions, such as converting natural land cover to agricultural or urban land, result in the loss and fragmentation of natural habitat, with important consequences for the provision of ecosystem services. Such habitat loss is especially important for services that are supplied by fragments of natural land cover and that depend on flows of organisms, matter, or people across the landscape to produce benefits, such as pollination, pest regulation, recreation and cultural services. However, our quantitative knowledge about precisely how different patterns of landscape fragmentation might affect the provision of these types of services is limited. We used a simple, spatially explicit model to evaluate the potential impact of natural land cover loss and fragmentation on the provision of hypothetical ecosystem services. Based on current literature, we assumed that fragments of natural land cover provide ecosystem services to the area surrounding them in a distance-dependent manner such that ecosystem service flow depended on proximity to fragments. We modeled seven different patterns of natural land cover loss across landscapes that varied in the overall level of landscape fragmentation. Our model predicts that natural land cover loss will have strong and unimodal effects on ecosystem service provision, with clear thresholds indicating rapid loss of service provision beyond critical levels of natural land cover loss. It also predicts the presence of a tradeoff between maximizing ecosystem service provision and conserving natural land cover, and a mismatch between ecosystem service provision at landscape versus finer spatial scales. Importantly, the pattern of landscape fragmentation mitigated or intensified these tradeoffs and mismatches. Our model suggests that managing patterns of natural land cover loss and fragmentation could help influence the provision of multiple ecosystem services and manage tradeoffs and synergies between services across different human-dominated landscapes.

First Record Of Clytra Laeviuscula Ratzeburg As Potential Insect Pest Of Energy Willow (Salix Viminalis L.) In Ukraine

Abstract Cultivation of short rotation coppice energy willow (SRC EW), Salix viminalis L., has a great potential in Ukraine as a source of biomass for biofuel production. Commercial production of this species was recently initiated in the country. The growing of SRC EW in Western and Northern Europe for a long time showed that leaf beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) are key pests causing significant biomass reduction. However, data about the pest complex for energy willow growing in Ukraine is not available. Our three-year experiment in Poltava region, Ukraine showed that foliar damage caused by Clytra laeviuscula Ratzeburg (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) occurred at energy willow plantations in the second year of production, which could have an effect on commercial production. Accordingly, information about seasonal activity, population dynamics, host range and the role of natural enemies in pest regulation are requested for developing pest control program.

Editorial

Editorial

Eight principles of integrated pest management

The use of pesticides made it possible to increase yields, simplify cropping systems, and forego more complicated crop protection strategies. Over-reliance on chemical control, however, is associated with contamination of ecosystems and undesirable health effects. The future of crop production is now also threatened by emergence of pest resistance and declining availability of active substances. There is therefore a need to design cropping systems less dependent on synthetic pesticides. Consequently, the European Union requires the application of eight principles (P) of Integrated Pest Management that fit within sustainable farm management. Here, we propose to farmers, advisors, and researchers a dynamic and flexible approach that accounts for the diversity of farming situations and the complexities of agroecosystems and that can improve the resilience of cropping systems and our capacity to adapt crop protection to local realities. For each principle (P), we suggest that (P1) the design of inherently robust cropping systems using a combination of agronomic levers is key to prevention. (P2) Local availability of monitoring, warning, and forecasting systems is a reality to contend with. (P3) The decision-making process can integrate cropping system factors to develop longer-term strategies. (P4) The combination of non-chemical methods that may be individually less efficient than pesticides can generate valuable synergies. (P5) Development of new biological agents and products and the use of existing databases offer options for the selection of products minimizing impact on health, the environment, and biological regulation of pests. (P6) Reduced pesticide use can be effectively combined with other tactics. (P7) Addressing the root causes of pesticide resistance is the best way to find sustainable crop protection solutions. And (P8) integration of multi-season effects and trade-offs in evaluation criteria will help develop sustainable solutions.