BISC 435 Introduction to Pest Management

Course Objectives and Scope:
Course Description: The course will introduce students to Pest Management and will cover the fundamentals of sampling and pest management theory in addition to the main tactics used in pest management programs.

Outline of Topics: Topics covered include a background to the history of pest management, invasive species, sampling methods and design, pest management theory and economic decision levels, day degree models, population dynamics, as well as physical, cultural, biological, behavioural, and genetic control tactics. In addition the course will cover genetically modified organisms, the impact of evolutionary processes on pest management, biodiversity and biological control and the potential impact of climate change.

Text – no recommended text

Integrated pest management – Edited by Edward B. Radcliffe, William D. Hutchinson & Rafael E. Cancelado

Entomology and pest management – Larry P. Pedigo and Marlin E. Rice

Control of pests and weeds by natural enemies – Roy van Driesche, Mark Hoddle & Ted Centre

Natural enemies – an introduction to biological control – Ann Hajek

Website that contains useful links

Radcliffe’s IPM World Textbook at http://ipmworld.umn.edu

Course Objectives:

To provide opportunities to:
1. evaluate and summarize papers in the primary literature critically.
2. find information from the primary literature.
3. present material clearly and confidently to others
4. work cooperatively with others to achieve a goal
5. identify interesting questions and to form these as testable hypotheses.
6. evaluate the relevance of data and interpretations based on data.

Learning objectives:
To be able to critically evaluate basic and applied problems in Pest Management.
To read, interpret, evaluate and summarize papers from the primary scientific literature
To discuss alternative approaches to interpretation of data.
To synthesize information from multiple sources and clearly write about complex subjects

Examinations and graded course work
The will be two examinations; a mid-term worth 15% of the final mark and a final exam worth 45% of the final mark. Exams can include anything covered in the course; lectures, guest lectures, any of the papers discussed in class and material from the class exercises and discussions. The questions will include both interpretation of data and problem solving as well as understanding concepts and memorization of details. There will be a term paper worth 25% of the total mark for the course which will comprise a resource system analysis, which will be presented in the form of a proposal and a poster (see separate details). In addition, students will take part in a mini-debate on the pros and cons of genetically modified crops (March 26th); this will accompanied by a short summary of facts related to the issue (10% of the final grade) (see separate details). Students will also take part in a group presentation of a published paper related to lecture topics: non-presenting students will write a paper summary (5%) (see separate details).

Mid term I		15%
Final exam		45%
Course paper		25%
Mini-debate		10%
Paper presentations		5%