The Identification and Characterization of Pest Organisms

The identification of, and relationship among, pest organisms and their natural enemies is an essential prerequisite for the development of sustainable methods for their control. Biosystematics is the basis for management of biodiversity in sustainable agriculture. There is a vast armoury of techniques available to the biosystematist, and this book is the first major review of the applications and potential of the methods now in use, ranging from the morphometric and ultrastructural to isozymes and DNA sequencing. This volume consists of 34 papers presented at the Third Workshop on the Ecological Foundations of Sustainable Agriculture (WEFSA III), organized by CAB INTERNATIONAL and the Systematics Association, held in June 1993. The book is divided into four parts: biosystematic services, biosystematic information, biosystematic characters, and biochemical and molecular biosystematics. It demonstrates how biosystematics can contribute to improved crop protection and which techniques are appropriate to address particular identification problems, and makes recommendations for future actions.

Table of Contents:
I: BIOSYSTEMATIC SERVICES 1: Are Biosystematic services necessary, desirable, and possible? 2: Pest organisms: Numbers, ecosystem impact, and developing country needs 3: The need for identification services in agriculture 4: The need for identification services for veterinary pests 5: A review of existing identification services and future needs 6: Development of world identification services: Networking 7: BioNET-INTERNATIONAL: A global network for Biosystematics of arthropods, nematodes and microorganisms 8: Constraints to pest characterization caused by biological nomenclature 9: Training in identification of pest organisms: an overview of existing training 10: Discussion on training II: BIOSYSTEMATIC INFORMATION 11: Computerized information resources for pest identification: A review 12: Information resources for pest identification: An overview of computer-aided approaches 13: An electronic compendium for crop protection III: BIOSYSTEMATIC CHARACTERS 14: Function and ecology in the biosystematics of pest organisms 15: Morphometric descrimination of pest species: Experimental design 16: Karyotype variation in insect taxonomy 17: Integration of morphometric, cytogenetic and molecular techniques: A case study of Simulium damnosum 18: Scanning electron microscopy and the separation of critical species 19: Third order morphology: TEM in the service of taxonomy 20: Species recognition systems IV: BIOCHEMICAL AND MOLECULAR BIOSYSTEMATICS 21: Hydrocarbons in species recognition in insects 22: Rapid enzyme tests in the characterization and identification of microorganisms 23: Classification of organisms by secondary metabolites 24: Quantitative and qualitative analysis of fatty acids in the classification and identification of microorganisms 25: Isozyme and protein profiles of insects of agricultural and horticultural importance 26: Immunodiagnosis methods using polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies 27: A nematode case study focusing on the application of serology 28: Identification and characterization of pest organisms: A plant trypanosomes case study 29: DNA-based methods for identification and characterization 30: DNA probes and PCR-based methods for identification and diagnosis of bacterial plant pathogens 31: Identification of pests and pathogens by random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPDs) 32: Polymerase chain reaction methods for the detection of seedborne plant pathogens 33: Recommendations of the international workshop of the identification and characterization of pest organisms (ICPO)