Nontarget Effects of Biological Control

Nontarget Effects of Biological Control is the first book of its kind. The environmental safety of biological control has come under scrutiny due to several areas of concerns: the irreversibility of alien introductions, the prevalence of host switching to innocuous native or beneficial species, dispersal of the biocontrol agent to new habitats away from croplands, and the lack of research on the efficacy and impact of biocontrol attempts. The debate has been strongly polarized between conservationists and biological control practitioners. Nontarget Effects of Biological Control proposes that retrospective analyses of systems in place in which nontarget effects are now documented or suspected provide the necessary information for planning and evaluating future releases to reduce risk. The book presents case histories of past biological control introductions from island and continental ecosystems.

1. Perspectives. - 1. Critical Issues Related to Nontarget Effects in Classical Biological Control of Insects. - 2. Nontarget Effects of Biological Control: What Are We Trying to Miss? . - 3. The Frequency and Strength of Nontarget Effects of Invertebrate Biological Control Agents of Plant Pests and Weeds. - 4. The Impact of Nontarget Concerns on the Practice of Biological Control. - 2. Parasitoids and Predators. - 5. Predicting the Risk from Biological Control Agent Introductions: A New Zealand Approach. - 6. Parasitoid Drift in Hawaiian Pentatomoids. - 7. Evaluating Nontarget Effects of Classical Biological Control: Fruit Fly Parasitoids in Hawaii as a Case Study. - 8. Trichogramma Nontarget Impacts: A Method for Biological Control Risk Assessment. - 9. Coccinellid Introductions: Potential for and Evaluation of Nontarget Effects. - 10. Food Webs as a Tool for Studying Nontarget Effects in Biological Control. - 3. Weeds. - 11. Why Things Bite Back: Unintended Consequences of Biological Weed Control. - 12. Importation Protocols and Risk Assessment of Weed Biological Control Agents in Australia: The Example of Carmenta nr ithacae. - 13. Negative Ecological Effects of the Musk Thistle Biological Control Agent, Rhinocyllus conicus. - 14. Biological Control of Musk Thistle: A Reassessment. - 4. Pathogens. - 15. Predicting the Host Range of Entomopathogenic Fungi. - 16. Monitoring the Effects of Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki on Nontarget Lepidoptera in Woodlands and Forests of Western Oregon. - 17. Environmental Impacts of Entomopathogenic Nematodes Used for Biological Control in Soil.