Natural Enemies of Insect Pests in Neotropical Agroecosystems: Biological Control and Functional Biodiversity

This book aims to address the importance of natural enemies and functional diversity for biological control in Neotropical agroecosystems. Several aspects related to the conservation of natural enemies, such as vegetation design and climate change, are discussed in Part 1 and the bioecology of several insects groups used in biological control in Latin America is presented in Part 2. Part 3 is devoted to mass production of natural enemies while Part 4 describes how these insects have been used to control of pests in major crops, forests, pasture, weeds and plant diseases. Lastly, Part 5 reports Latin-American experiences of integration of biological in pest management programs.

Brígida Souza has a PhD in Entomology from the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) where she is a professor since 1997. As a researcher, she is focused on biological control of insect pest and published more than 130 peer-reviewed articles, 2 books and 5 book chapters. She supervises master and PhD students and was the coordinator of Graduate Program at UFLA from 2012 to 2016.

Luis L Vázquez has a PhD in Agriculture Sciences from Central University of Las Villas (1969), Cuba and founded the Instituto de Investigaciones de Sanidad Vegetal (INISAV) in 1977, where he worked until retirement in 2004. His research work involved the taxonomy of insect group pests (Aleyrodidae and Scolytinae), conservational biological control, agroecological pest management and functional biodiversity in production systems. He published more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals and technical magazines and more than 15 books and chapters. 

Rosangela Cristina Marucci has a PhD in Entomology from the University of São Paulo (2003). Prior to joining UFLA in 2015, She worked as consultant and lecturer for private companies and agriculture schools. At UFLA her research focus in on biological control pests with entomophagous insects. She published 20 peer reviewed articles and supervises master and PhD students.