Grant: Industrial Research Chairs

The era of widespread use of conventional chemical pesticides has ended. Public concern over continued and growing use of toxic pesticides has prompted regulatory agencies to eliminate pesticides or restrict their use. This, in turn, has lead to the resurgence of many pests, while others continue their assault on food, fiber and people, severely affecting our health and natural resource-based economy. Improved pest control methods and alternatives to chemical pesticides are urgently needed. The renewal proposal of the Industrial Research Chair is about some of those alternatives: multimodal foraging cues or communication signals insects (and some vertebrates) utilize to locate resources and to communicate among themselves. The emphasis is on the discovery of complex, multimodal and multicomponent stimuli because increasing evidence indicates that animals integrate diverse types of information. The discovery of novel visual, semiochemical, sonic, infrared, biomagnetic, and electrostatic foraging cues and communication signals, and synergistic effects between them, would allow the production of more effective baits or repellents, and would facilitate the development of new tactics for target-specific pest control, thereby: (1) improving human health through management of disease-vectoring insects and through reduced exposure to toxic insecticides; (2) improving food quality through elimination of insecticide residue; (3) increasing crop yield and grade through reduced pest impact; (4) reducing costs for pest control through integrated tactics; and (5) preserving biodiversity through conservation of beneficial insects.