Challenges with managing insecticide resistance in agricultural pests, exemplisfied by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci

Abstract

For many key agricultural pests, successful management of insecticide resistance depends not only on modifying the way that insecticides are deployed, but also on reducing the total number of treatments applied. Both approaches benefit from a knowledge of the biological characteristics of pests that promote or may retard the development of resistance. For the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), these factors include a haplodiploid breeding system that encourages the rapid selection and fixation of resistance genes, its breeding cycle on a succession of treated or untreated hosts, and its occurrence on and dispersal from high–value crops in greenhouses and glasshouses. These factors, in conjunction with often intensive insecticide use, have led to severe and widespread resistance that now affects several novel as well as conventional control agents. Resistance–management strategies implemented on cotton in Israel, and subsequently in south–western USA, have nonetheless so far succeeded in arresting the resistance treadmill in B. tabaci through a combination of increased chemical diversity, voluntary or mandatory restrictions on the use of key insecticides, and careful integration of chemical control with other pest–management options. In both countries, the most significant achievement has been a dramatic reduction in the number of insecticide treatments applied against whiteflies on cotton, increasing the prospect of sustained use of existing and future insecticides.