Examples
Resistance has developed in a variety of different pest species: Resistance to insecticides was first documented by A. L. Melander in 1914 when scale insects demonstrated resistance to an inorganic insecticide. Between 1914 and 1946, 11 additional cases of resistance to inorganic insecticides were recorded. The development of organic insecticides, such as DDT, gave hope that insecticide resistance was an issue of the past. Unfortunately, by 1947 housefly resistance to DDT was documented. With the introduction of every new insecticide class – cyclodienes, carbamates, formamidines, organophosphates, pyrethroids, even Bacillus thuringiensis – cases of resistance surfaced within two to 20 years.
- In the US, studies have shown that fruit flies that infest orange groves were becoming resistant to malathion, a pesticide used to kill them.
- In Hawaii and Japan and Tennessee, the diamondback moth developed a resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis about three years after it began to be used heavily.
- In England, rats in certain areas have developed such a strong resistance to rat poison that they can consume up to five times as much of it as normal rats without dying.
- DDT is no longer effective in preventing malaria in some places, a fact which contributed to a resurgence of the disease.
- In the southern United States, the weed Amaranthus palmeri, which interferes with production of cotton, has developed widespread resistance to the herbicide Roundup.
- Colorado potato beetle has developed resistance to 52 different compounds belonging to all major insecticide classes. Resistance levels vary greatly among different populations and between beetle life stages, but in some cases can be very high (up to 2,000-fold).
Although resistance development is usually discussed as a result of pesticide use, it is important to keep in mind that pest populations can also adapt to non-chemical methods of control. For example, the northern corn rootworm (Diabrotica barberi) became adapted to a corn-soybean crop rotation by spending the year when field is planted to soybeans in a diapause.
Read more about this topic: Pesticide Resistance
Famous quotes containing the word examples:
“In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people’s attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)