Unlike writers, and related pests, they cannot be controlled.
Anthropogenic influence on ecology and evolution is as old as humanity, and traditional goals of restoring 'pristine' ecosystems or inventing 'magic bullet' solutions for agricultural pests and medical pathogens cannot be implemented under conditions of indelible human impacts, untold generations of response in natural communities, and ongoing as well as future evolution.
The recent adaptation of phytophagous insect to agriculture cannot be explained solely by adaptive responses to pest control tools such as biological control, pesticides or resistant cultivars.
One of the most important rice pests, the brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), harbors an obligatory yeast-like symbiont (YLS) that cannot be cultured in vitro.
Even some ardent conservationists acknowledge that the diversity of life on Earth cannot be fully sustained as human populations expand, use more resources, nudge the climate and move weedlike pests and predators from place to place.
Such effects cannot be predicted for example from the known mode of action stemming almost exclusively from a very restricted group of organisms, the target pest herbivores [48].
Crop and livestock production cannot be controlled with great accuracy and tends to vary sharply from year to year owing to the effects of weather and pests and diseases.
Although we cannot be sure that our results pertain to other Bt constructs, other weedy rice populations, and other regions, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that seed production of weedy rice is limited by lepidopteran insect pests, and the introgression of transgenes that confer resistance to these pests can enhance the fitness of recipient populations.
Pests must be exterminated.
"Pests can be a big problem," said DeMeulle.
