Population dynamics, demography, dispersal and spread of Bemisia tabaci

Abstract

Understanding the population-level processes of any pest insect is central to predicting temporal and spatial changes in abundance and occurrence, as well as in developing effective pest management strategies, whether on single crops on individual farms or multiple crops within agricultural landscapes. Four components drive population dynamics in the time-space continuum: birth rates, death rates, immigration rates, and emigration rates. This deceptively simple fact becomes immensely complex, however, when one considers all the interacting biotic and abiotic factors that influence each of these key population rates. The challenge becomes even greater for a broadly polyphagous and non-diapausing pest like Bemisia tabaci that can thrive and reproduce on multiple host plants over the entire year in areas it inhabits (Mound and Halsey 1978; Watson et al. 1992; Naranjo et al. 2004). © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.