FROM THE PREFACE: The abundance of insects can change dramatically from generation to generation; these generational changes may occur within a growing season or over a period of years. Such extraordinary density changes or "outbreaks" may be abrupt and ostensibly random, or population peaks may occur in a more or less cyclic fashion....The goal of this book is to update and advance current thinking on the phenomenon of insect outbreaks. The contributors have reviewed relevant literature in order to generate a synthesis providing new concepts and important alternatives for future research. More importantly, they have presented new ideas or syntheses that will stimulate advances in thinking and experimentation.

The abundance of insects can change dramatically from generation to generation; these generational changes may occur within a growing season or over a period of years. Such extraordinary density changes or "outbreaks" may be abrupt and ostensibly random, or population peaks may occur in a more or less cyclic fashion. They can be hugely destructive when the insect is a crop pest or carries diseases of humans, farm animals, or wildlife. Knowledge of these types of population dynamics and computer models that may help predict when they occur are very important. This important new book revisits a subject not thoroughly discussed in such a publication since 1988 and brings an international scale to the issue of insect outbreaks. Insect Outbreaks Revisited is intended for senior undergraduate and graduate students in ecology, population biology and entomology, as well as government and industry scientists doing research on pests, land managers, pest management personnel, extension personnel, conservation biologists and ecologists, and state, county and district foresters.

This book is intended as a general text for undergraduates studying the manage ment of forest insect pests. It is divided into four parts: insects, ecology, manage ment, and practice. Part I, Insects, contains two chapters. The first is intended to provide an overview of the general attributes of insects. Recognizing that it is impossible to adequately treat such a diverse and complex group of organisms in such a short space, I have attempted to highlight those insectan characteristics that make them difficult animals to combat. I have also tried to expose the insects' weak points, those attributes that make them vulnerable to manipulation by human actions. Even so, this first chapter will seem inadequate and sketchy to many of my colleagues. Ideally, this book should be used in conjunction with a laboratory manual covering insect anatomy, physiology, biology, behavior, and classifica tion in much greater depth-in fact, this is how I organize my forest entomology course. It is hoped that this first chapter will provide nonentomologists with a general feel for the insects and with a broad understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, while Chapter 2 will provide a brief overview of the diverse insect fauna that attacks the various parts of forest trees and their products.

The problem and the approach. Case studies. Discussion - Is there a greater risk of pest outbreaks in exotics?.

Tropical Forest Insect Pests, first published in 2007, promotes a better theoretical understanding of pest population dynamics, and causes of forest insect outbreaks in the tropics. Covering pests of both natural forests and plantations, it examines the diversity of tropical forest insects; their ecological functions; the concept of pests; and the incidence of pests in natural forests, plantations, and stored timber. General issues on which foresters and forest entomologists hold strong traditional views, such as the severity of pest incidence in plantations vs. natural forests, in plantations of exotics vs. indigenous tree species, and in monocultures vs. mixed plantations are discussed. The final section looks in detail at specific insect pests of the common plantation tree species across the tropics, with recommendations for their control. This is a comprehensive resource suitable for graduate students and researchers in forestry and tropical forest entomology, and for forest plantation managers in the tropics.

The book ‘Silent Spring’ written by Rachel Carson in 1962, is considered the la- mark in changing the attitude of the scientists and the general public regarding the complete reliance on the synthetic pesticides for controlling the ravages caused by the pests in agriculture crops. For about ve decades, the Integrated Pest Mana- ment (IPM) is the accepted strategy for managing crop pests. IPM was practiced in Canet ̃ e Valley, Peru in 1950s, even before the term IPM was coined. Integrated Pest management: Innovation-Development Process, Volume 1, focuses on the recog- tion of the dysfunctional consequences of the pesticide use in agriculture, through researchanddevelopmentoftheIntegratedPest Managementinnovations. Thebook aims to update the information on the global scenario of IPM with respect to the use of pesticides, its dysfunctional consequences, and the concepts and advan- ments made in IPM systems. This book is intended as a text as well as reference material for use in teaching the advancements made in IPM. The book provides an interdisciplinary perspective of IPM by the forty-three experts from the eld of entomology, plant pathology, plant breeding, plant physiology, biochemistry, and extension education. The introductory chapter (Chapter 1) gives an overview of IPM initiatives in the developed and developing countries from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, Latin America and North America. IPM concepts, opportunities and challenges are d- cussed in Chapter 2.

This new approach to insect modeling discusses population dynamics' regularities, control theory, theory of transitions, and describes methods of population dynamics and outbreaks modeling for forest phyllophagous insects and their effects on global climate change. Research in insect population dynamics is important for more reasons than just protecting forest communities. Insect populations are among the main ecological units included in the analysis of stability of ecological systems. Moreover, it is convenient to test new methods of analyzing population and community stability on the insect-related data, as by now ecologists and entomologists have accumulated large amounts of such data. In this book, the authors analyze population dynamics of quite a narrow group of insects – forest defoliators. It is hoped that the methods proposed herein for the analysis of population dynamics of these species may be useful and effective for analyzing population dynamics of other animal species and their effects and role in global warming. What can insects tell us about our environment and our ever-changing climate? It is through studies like this one that these important answers can be obtained, along with data on the insects and their behaviors themselves. The authors present new theories on modeling and data accumulation, using cutting-edge processes never before published for such a wide audience. This volume presents the state-of-the-art in the science, and it is an essential piece of any entomologist's and forest engineer's library.