Biodiversity and Insect Pests: Key Issues for Sustainable Management

Geoff Gurr is Professor of Applied Ecology at Charles Sturt University in Australia. Over the last two decades he has worked on the ecology and management of pests in systems as diverse as pastures and forests. Much of his recent work has been with collaborators throughout Asia where insecticide resistance in sucking pests of rice has driven the development and adoption of biodiversity-based management strategies.

Steve Wratten is Professor of Ecology at Lincoln University, New Zealand and Visiting Professor at Charles Sturt University in Australia. His main research concerns evaluating and enhancing "nature's services" (ecosystem services). Using resource economics techniques, the existing value of these services (such things as biological control of pests) is estimated and then habitat manipulation ("ecological engineering") is used to enhance these services on farmland to provide profit and real evidence of sustainability. This work is done across several agricultural sectors but especially in vineyards.

William Snyder is Professor of Entomology at Washington State University, USA. With the help of a small army of students and postdocs, he explores the relationship between biodiversity and biocontrol. Recent work focuses on the relative importance of the two components of biodiversity, species number (richness) and species balance (evenness), and practical ways for farmers to harness biodiversity's many benefits.

Donna Read is a Research Assistant at Charles Sturt University, Australia with interests in rural sociology, agricultural economics and horticulture.