Pesticides are substances that are used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others. The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all pesticide use globally. Most pesticides are used as plant protection products, which in general protect plants from weeds, fungi, or insects. In general, a pesticide is a chemical or biological agent that deters, incapacitates, kills, or otherwise discourages pests. Target pests can include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms), and microbes that destroy property, cause nuisance, or spread disease, or are disease vectors. Along with these benefits, pesticides also have drawbacks, such as potential toxicity to humans and other species.
Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Acaricides, which kill mites and ticks, are not strictly insecticides, but are usually classified together with insecticides. The major use of Insecticides is agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden, industrial buildings, vector control and control of insect parasites of animals and humans. Insecticides are claimed to be a major factor behind the increase in the 20th-century's agricultural productivity. Nearly all insecticides have the potential to significantly alter ecosystems; many are toxic to humans and/or animals; some become concentrated as they spread along the food chain.
Piperonyl butoxide (PBO) is a pale yellow to light brown liquid organic compound used as an adjuvant component of pesticide formulations for synergy. That is, despite having no pesticidal activity of its own, it enhances the potency of certain pesticides such as carbamates, pyrethrins, pyrethroids, and rotenone. It is a semisynthetic derivative of safrole and is produced from the condensation of the sodium salt of 2-(2-butoxyethoxy) ethanol and the chloromethyl derivative of hydrogenated safrole (dihydrosafrole). Although this route of synthesis has faced a lot of criticism in recent times. The new route of synthesis is through 1,2-Methylenedioxybenzene, developed by The Anthea Group and patented in 2019.
N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, also called diethyltoluamide or DEET, is the oldest, one of the most effective and most common active ingredient in commercial insect repellents. It is a slightly yellow oil intended to be applied to the skin or to clothing and provides protection against mosquitoes, flies, ticks, fleas, chiggers, leeches, and many other biting insects.
Bruce Nathan Ames is an American biochemist who is a professor of biochemistry and Molecular Biology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI). Ames has made contributions to understanding the mechanisms of mutagenesis and DNA repair. He invented the Ames test, a widely used assay for easily and cheaply evaluating the mutagenicity of compounds. The test revolutionized the field of toxicology and has played a crucial role in identifying numerous environmental and industrial carcinogens.
In organic chemistry, organophosphates are a class of organophosphorus compounds with the general structure O=P(OR)3, a central phosphate molecule with alkyl or aromatic substituents. They can be considered as esters of phosphoric acid. Organophosphates are best known for their use as pesticides.
Dichlorvos is an organophosphate widely used as an insecticide to control household pests, in public health, and protecting stored products from insects. The compound has been commercially available since 1961. It has become controversial because of its prevalence in urban waterways and the fact that its toxicity extends well beyond insects. Since 1988, dichlorvos cannot be used as a plant protection product in the EU.
John Edward Casida was an American entomologist, toxicologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Fluvalinate is a synthetic pyrethroid chemical compound contained as an active agent in the products Apistan, Klartan, and Minadox, that is an acaricide, commonly used to control Varroa mites in honey bee colonies, infestations that constitute a significant disease of such insects.
Lynn Kimsey is an entomologist, taxonomist, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis since 1989. Her specialties are bees and wasps; and insect diversity and evolution.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology was founded in 1946 on the campus of the University of California, Davis. The museum is currently the seventh largest insect collection in North America with more than seven million specimens of terrestrial and freshwater arthropods. At least 90% of these holdings are insects. The collection is worldwide in scope with the Western Hemisphere, Indonesia, and Australasia particularly well represented.
Walter Soares Leal is a Brazilian biochemist and entomologist who is known for identifying pheromones and mosquito attractants, and elucidating a mechanism of action of the insect repellent DEET.
John Maurice Tucker was an American botanist, herbarium director, and leading expert on oak taxonomy.
M. Saif Islam is a Bangladeshi-American engineering professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis.
Thomas Wallace Scott is an American tropical infectious disease epidemiologist.
Neal Mikkelsen Williams is an American pollination ecologist.
Myron P. Zalucki is an Australian professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Queensland (UQ). Zalucki is a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America, a member and secretary of the Council of the International Congresses of Entomology, and a co-editor of the Annual Review of Entomology.
Mary Foley Benson was an American scientific illustrator and fine artist. She specialized in detailed, realistic watercolor paintings of plants and insects.
Jennifer S. Thaler is an American entomologist who is a faculty member in the Department of Entomology, with a joint appointment in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She has expertise in the areas of population and community ecology, plant-insect interactions, tri-trophic interactions, and chemical ecology.
James R. Carey is an entomologist, biodemographer, author and academic. He is Distinguished Professor of Entomology at the University of California, Davis and Senior Scholar in the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA) at UC Berkeley.
