This book is designed to help the reader anticipate and recognize specific problems of pest management and then to resolve them using the natural enemies of pests — insects, mites, and diseases. The main sections on pest profiles, beneficial species, and entomopathogens provide a pest identification guide as well as information on species characteristics, life cycles, damage symptoms, plant and pest associations, and influences on growing practices. The book will be a valuable reference for professional, academic, and lay readers, whether they are growers, consultants, scientists, or students.
Dr. Brown has an international reputation as an ecotoxicologist and has been actively involved in the development of the current European regulatory requirements (91/414/EEC). He has 20 years experience in the research and development of plant protection products. Before joining Exponent, Dr. Brown managed a contract research facility specialising in the environmental effects of agrochemicals, and was responsible for the design, conduct, and interpretation of higher tier studies with soil fauna, aquatic mesocosms, honey bees, non-target arthropods, and avian radio-tracking studies. Dr. Brown has a great deal of experience of managing complex studies to meet regulatory requirements. In 1989, Dr. Brown was a founder member of the Beneficial Arthropod Testing Group (BART), made up of industry and key contractors to rationalise regulatory testing of non-target arthropods. In the 1990’s, Dr. Brown was an active member of the working groups that developed and ring-tested methodology for many of the species currently used in pesticide testing. Dr. Brown was a member of the organising committee of the ESCORT 1 workshop on regulatory testing of pesticides and prepared the Hazard Quotient database (published in Campbell et al. 2000) that formed the basis of the ESCORT 2 workshop in Wageningen (2000). Current European regulatory requirements, with respect to non-target arthropods, are based on the output from this workshop. Dr. Brown was a member of the EU research project EUFRAM on probabilistic risk assessment and a member of the UK PSD project WEBFRAM 4, specifically looking at combining distributions of both toxicity and exposure to quantify risk. Dr. Brown is an invited member of the European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) WG on residues in invertebrates as food items for birds and mammals, and has provided expert advice and training for both agrochemical companies and regulatory authorities. Dr. Brown has recently joined the UK Environmental Panel that provides scientific advice to the Advisory Committee and to the Pesticides Safety Directorate on a range of issues relating to the Environmental Fate and Behaviour and the Ecotoxicology of pesticides.
Nigel Cattlin began his photography at ICI Plant Protection's Research Station at Jealotts's Hill in Berkshire, where he ran the photographic section for 15 years. In 1981 he established Holt Studios, www.holt-studios.co.uk, a photographic library providing images of agriculture and gardening for magazines, books, technical literature and publicity. He has photographed all aspects of agriculture and horticulture in many parts of the world, and retains a specialist interest in photography of plant protection subjects.
