Crop domestication, global human-mediated migration, and the unresolved role of geography in pest control

One of the major assumptions of sustainable agriculture is that studying the ecology of insect pests in agroecosystems should lead to improved ecologically-based pest management. In the majority of studies, the geographic origin of the plants and insects are rarely considered. As a result, there has been little discussion as to whether species origins influence the success of pest control.

In this new commentary, I discuss how geography structures the evolution of insect as pests, and how this may influence the success of ecologically-based pest control approaches. I propose that further advances in developing ecologically-based management may come by developing a line of questioning that acknowledges both agricultural history and geography.

The article is freely available from Elementa: Science of the AnthropoceneFig. 1 final-RGB_small

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