**2. Monitoring with attractant-baited traps is an important component of pest-management programs**

In the vast majority of farms, pest control is done by spray scheduled. Insecticide applications are made at determined times regardless of the insect population density. When the control by spray scheduled is not used, the presence of a single organism potentially damaging to the culture determines insecticide applications. There is no doubt that those forms of control are not sustainable both environmentally and economically. Therefore, one of the important steps to change those procedures of agricultural production is to quantify the potential damage caused by pests. This determination allows knowing if the insects population density found in the crop can be tolerated. For this reason, one of the major uses of monitoring is the determination of early pest incidence; determine if the pest population has reached levels that will cause economic damage; as well as the detection of infested areas; inspection of quarantine pest presence, among other uses.

develop pest behavior research for the benefit of farmers and the environment. What compounds can be used to manipulate the pests and keep them below their level of dam‐ age? What behavior can be explored in Integrated Pest Management to reach sustainabili‐

At this current scenario of sustainable development, behavioral control is therefore ap‐ propriate by enabling to reduce the use of synthetic insecticides, which usually have broad spectrum and side effects to humans, beneficial insects and environment. Com‐ pounds and molecules involved in behavioral pest management such as feeding stimu‐ lants and semiochemicals, mostly sex pheromones, can be very useful to reduce synthetic

Practical applications of semiochemicals, including the sex pheromones, can lead to modifi‐ cation of pest communication permitting mating disruption, attraction to pint-source lures for monitoring, control by mass trapping, push-pull and attract-and-kill. Attractant lures can also be used for insect population control, in combination with large-capacity traps or a contact insecticide (Witzgall *et al*. 2008). The idea of controlling insect populations through speciesspecific manipulation of sexual communication, without adversely affecting other organisms, has been a driving force for pheromone research. According to Foster & Harris (1997) manip‐ ulation is defined as the use of stimuli that either stimulates or inhibits a behavior and thereby changes its expression. This has been achieved and technological shortcomings have been overcome through a joint effort between researchers, industry, and growers. Adoption of semiochemical-based pest management has increased in the face of dwindling conventional options, such as insecticides, increased government regulations and improved cost-competi‐

There are severals main elements of the behavioral manipulation method on which the tactics and strategies targeting the pest management should be based: knowledge about the behavior of the pest, identification of behaviors that should be handled, the ways in which the behavior is manipulated appropriately and the development of methods and tools that are used in the behavioral management of pests. This chapter will discuss pest monitoring and different behavioral manipulation techniques that can be used alone or in combination with other control methods and enable the optimization of synthetic in‐

**2. Monitoring with attractant-baited traps is an important component of**

In the vast majority of farms, pest control is done by spray scheduled. Insecticide applications are made at determined times regardless of the insect population density. When the control by spray scheduled is not used, the presence of a single organism potentially damaging to the culture determines insecticide applications. There is no doubt that those forms of control are not sustainable both environmentally and economically. Therefore, one of the important steps to change those procedures of agricultural production is to quantify the potential damage

ty in agriculture?

176 Insecticides - Development of Safer and More Effective Technologies

insecticides dosage.

tiveness.

secticides use in agriculture.

**pest-management programs**

The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) which recommends the use of control methods when the pest population reaches the Economic Injury Level (EIL) depends on the monitoring for an effective decision making. Pest monitoring is an extremely important tool, for through it, the proper time to use a control method is defined. If the adopted is chemical control, the insecticides application should be done only when the pest population density reaches control level. Thus, monitoring allows defining the spatial and temporal distribution of the insect. This strategy makes pest control more efficient and economic, reducing costs and time sampling, rationalizing sprayings and preserving biodiversity in the agroecosystems. In pest monitoring, several devices, such as traps, can be used spread out in the fields aiming to quantify specific insects. The number of insects measured is important in the decision making for determine whether the pest population has reached the EIL. At this stage of pest management, assessment is, therefore, qualitative. The important in this case is to obtain a correlation between the number of insects measured and its real population density. For monitoring, a large number of tools can be used as beat cloth, trays or traps. In the case of traps, several attractants can be used, such as pheromones, food and attractive colors.

Pheromones are widely used in pest monitoring (Wyatt 1998) due to their specificity, selectivity and mainly for not affecting the health of workers and environment. They are chemicals used in conspecific communication, acting both in physiology, on individuals development; as in behavior, with a domino effect, prompting immediate action. The domino effect is what is explored in pest monitoring. Among the various existing types of pheromones, the sexual is the most widely studied in insect pest management (Vilela & Della Lucia 2001). The detection and recognition of pheromone molecules by insects are closely related to the olfactory system. The pheromone molecules reach the pores of the antenna sensilla, which are present in the thousands on antenna surface, vertically oriented and capture molecules in the air (Mustaparta 1984). Inside the antenna, the odor molecules collide with the dendritic membrane translating the chemical signal into electrical potential. The nervous impulse is transmitted to the central nervous system to produce a particular behavior in insects. These selective attractants are used in traps spread in the field that are to be monitored. Traps baited with pheromones must be sensitive enough to capture insects selectively, consistently and at low densities. Therefore, the knowledge of the target insect flight behavior is crucial when choosing the type of traps. Trap location and its height in the field, the most appropriate format and the most suitable pheromone mix for the site should be determined from studies of insect reproductive behavior. Additionally, the choice of the trap should be appropriate to the features of the land where the crop is located. Traps which have liquids as surface retention of insects are more difficult to be handled in a land of accentuated incline. In this case, models of traps where the insects are trapped by surfaces impregnated with adhesive glue would be more appropriate. These monitoring tools should be efficient enough to capture the target pest at low population densities, be easy to handle and to carry and also should have low cost, high durability and strength. These parameters, which should be determined, are essential for successful moni‐ toring.

controlling several pests like the pink bollworrn, *Pectinophora gossypiella* on cotton; the oriental fruit moth, *Grapholita molesta*, on stone fruits; tomato borer fruit *Neoleucinodes elegantalis*, in tomato and codling moth, *Cydia pomonella* in apple, in which codling moth mating disruption

The Use of Behavioral Manipulation Techniques on Synthetic Insecticides Optimization

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53354

179

This method consists of distributing a large amount of synthetic sex pheromone in the field, aiming to prevent the male to find a female, disrupting mating. Therefore, new pest genera‐ tions do not occur on treated area. Nevertheless the success of this method is associated with pest migratory ability and biological aspects. According to reference (Cardé & Minks 1995) the use of sexual disruption certainly results in success, due to its ability to reduce the local population of the pest. However, it does not protect the area of immigration from outside populations, when used in an isolated way by a single producer or when there is no geographic isolation (geographic barriers). In order to avoid these potential problems, to ensure that this method will obtains the desirable success, it is required a good knowledge about the ecology of the pest and its immigration ability, aiming the entry capacity of mated females, coming from outside the treated area. The sphere of lures influence must be determinate for obtaining the distance between them in the field. Research will focus on determining the number of lures,

The logistics involved in implementing the method, also deserves attention, as it requires an accurate monitoring program, based on samplings with traps baited with pheromone, to determine or even to ensure that the use of disruption is enough to keep the pest population

The sex pheromone may act through different mechanisms in mating disruption, however, the main behavioral mechanisms have been defined as sensory fatigue by diminution of response due to sensory adaptation or habituation, arrestment of upwind flight at high concentrations, shifting the rhythm of response to females, changing the fine structure of or camouflaging a natural plume, outcompeting females, and causing an imbalance of sensory inputs by altering the perceived blend. In spite of the large amount of work on mating disruption of moths, as well as the considerable volume of work on the actual behavioral mechanisms used by male moths in response to pheromone, behavioral control has not been widely used in pest man‐ agement (Cardé & Minks 1995, Foster & Harris 1997). In this chapter we discuss some of these

Diminution in responsiveness via either sensory adaptation or habituation: Encounters with formulated pheromone may raise the males response threshold or abolish responsiveness entirely. Either outcome could result from adaptation of peripheral receptors on the antennae or habituation at a central processing level. Continuous release of pheromone formulation,

Shifting the rhythm of response: The continuous presence of pheromone can cause males to respond to formulated pheromone well before females call. Such precocious male activity could contribute to a diminished response when females commence pheromone release.

enables sustainable and reliable control at low population densities.

their dosages and their spatial arrangement to reduce mating success.

levels under the economic threshold level, thus justifying the method.

leading to its constant presence in the area, increases habituation.

**3.1. Mating disruption mechanisms**

mechanisms, as follows.

The monitoring has been used on many economic important pest worldwide using traps containing pheromone to estimate population density in important crops such as maize and tomato. The reports of its use to estimate populations of *Spodoptera frugiperda* (Mitch‐ ell *et al*. 1985, Tumlinson *et al.* 1986), *Ostrinia nubilalis* (Hudon *et al.* 1989), *Keiferia lycoper‐ sicella* (Ridgway *et al*. 1990) and *Tuta absoluta* (Charlton *et al.* 1991) shows that this is not a new tool of pest management. However, given the current need for sustainability of agri‐ cultural activities, such monitoring proved to be economically viable and environmentally sustainable, by determining the ideal time of interventions to reduce the population of pests in the field.

Besides pheromone use, monitoring can be performed based on visual stimuli. Insects that use vision to locate hosts can be monitored with the aid of colored traps. The princi‐ ple of this method is to ensure that the insects are lured into a colored surface impregnat‐ ed with glue. In reference (Natwick *et al.* 2007) it was recorded the efficacy of colored sticky traps to detect and monitor *Frankliniella occidentalis* in lettuce. In this particular case, the blue color would be more suitable. Studies have indicated that while there are no insects caught in traps, there is no need to carry out chemical control. The adoption of this monitoring by lettuce growers can reduce insecticide applications in the field. It should be noted that when using visual stimuli, based on color as attractant in traps, the preference of the target insect must be followed.

Food attractants can also be used for monitoring pests. In horticulture, the technique is widely used to monitor fruit flies. In this case, food baits are used in traps to attract in‐ sects. Several attractants, such as brown sugar, sucrose, hydrolyzed corn protein, fruit juice and wine vinegar in McPhail, Jackson and PET bottles traps are used for monitor‐ ing (Nascimento *et al.* 2000). One example is the use of orange and grape juices at a con‐ centration of 25% that are being used in monitoring *Anastrepha fraterculus* in peach orchards (Guerra *et al.* 2007).
