Adaptive invaders: Behavioral resistance and sustainable innovations in pest management

Behavioral resistance to insecticides poses a significant threat to arthropod control programs across agriculture and public health, yet it remains under-defined and under-measured. Although reports date back to the 1940s, progress has lagged because “behavioral resistance” encompasses multiple mechanisms and is difficult to quantify using standard toxicology alone. In recent years, a systematic effort to investigate the mechanism(s) of behavioral resistance in pest taxa (e.g., the German cockroach and the house fly) has been undertaken. In this talk, I will practically define behavioral resistance, briefly describe efforts taken by research groups to elucidate resistance mechanisms and overcome resistance, provide insight into designing appropriate bioassays for investigating behavioral resistance mechanisms in the future, and discuss the driving dforce and research vision of the newly established Hubbard Urban Entomology at New Mexico State University.