Integrated Pest Management

Integrated Pest Management

Current Concepts and Ecological Perspective
2014, Pages 283-310
Integrated Pest Management

Chapter 15 - Spiders – The Generalist Super Predators in Agro-Ecosystems

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Faced with the need to reduce pesticide usage on the world’s crops and optimize natural biological control, a full investigation of the means by which spiders influence pest abundance is long overdue. Also, in recent years, there has been a realization by ecologists that components of agro-ecosystems are tractable to manipulation and that spiders are convenient model organisms. Consequently, there are a growing number of investigations in which spiders in agro-ecosystems are used as tools to gain fundamental insights into the role of generalist predators in community and ecosystem function.

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