Resistance Detection and Documentation: The Relative Roles of Pesticidal and Biochemical Assays

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed significant changes in both the philosophy and methods used for the monitoring of insecticide and acaricide resistance. The traditional emphasis has been on the development of precise but artificial techniques that measure change only in the physiological resistance of a strain under laboratory conditions (Busvine 1957). These techniques commonly use topical application of technical-grade insecticide in a suitable solvent and the calculation of median lethal dose estimates (e.g., LD50 or LC50) on a per-body-weight basis.