Effects of pesticides and alternative food for natural enemies on pest control Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Department of Evolutionary and Population Biology, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands & Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil

Online access* • LINK

Crop pests are still mainly controlled with chemical pesticides, despite their negative impacts on the environment and on human health. Using a combination of population-dynamical models and meta-analyses, I will show that these pesticides are not even very effective at controlling pests and that crops can be better protected by stimulating the natural enemies of the pests. Nowadays, enemies are often provided with alternative food to increase their efficiency, but this has yielded mixed results. Several causes for these mixed results are identified and practices of supplying alternative food that will potentially increase the efficiency of natural enemies are discussed.

*  To access the meeting in the app without using the link, use the meeting ID 345 113 178 334 98 and access code jX9ir3Fn