Grant: Industrial Research Chairs

Although modern pesticides play a key role in controlling pest taxa, many insects have developed pesticideresistance. Moreover, public concern over continued and growing use of pesticides has prompted regulatoryagencies to restrict their use which has lead to the resurgence of many pests. Other pests continue their assaulton people, livestock, food and fiber, severely affecting our health and natural resource-based economies.Alternative and more integrated pest control strategies are urgently needed. The renewal proposal of the Chairis about some of those alternatives: multi-modal communication signals that insects, ticks, spiders and rodentsutilize to communicate, and multi-modal foraging cues that these taxa exploit to locate resources. Theemphasis is on the discovery of multi-modal and multi-component communication signals and foraging cuesbecause - increasingly - evidence indicates that both vertebrates and invertebrates integrate diverse types ofinformation. The discovery of novel visual, semiochemical, sonic, infrared, bio-magnetic and electrostaticcommunication signals and foraging cues, and synergisms between them, would allow the development ofmore effective attractants and repellents, and new tactics for target-specific pest control. The 4th Chair-termwill target challenging pest groups that inflict severe pain on livestock (horn & stable flies), carrydisease-causing pathogens (mosquitoes, ticks, rodents), or simply have escaped effective control (thrips,spidermites).