Syllabus

PLS0074 Evolutionary Integrated Pest Management, 1.5 Credits

Subjects

Education cycle

Grading scale

Language

Prior knowledge

Objectives

To exemplify how evolutionary research could be used within integrated pest management (IPM) and to foster interdisciplinary research and collaboration. To bring together PhD students in evolutionary biology, agriculture and horticulture to increase their network and to stimulate new research ideas.

Content

Modern agriculture suffers from pests and pathogens that evolved resistance to pesticides, a lack of genetic variation in crops, and the constant emergence of new and invasive pests. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a holistic approach to combat pests using a combination of preventive and curative actions, which is prescribed as the future pest management within the EU. Just as the recent recognition that an evolutionary perspective is useful in medicine to understand and predict interactions between hosts, diseases and medical treatments, it is crucial to integrate an evolutionary framework in IPM to develop efficient and reliable crop protection strategies that do not lead to resistance development in pests. At the same time, agricultural systems provide excellent models to address fundamental evolutionary questions, for example in host-parasite evolution and the drivers of rapid local adaptation. The aim of the course is to integrate evolutionary biology and pest management as well as to stimulate interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Within the course, we outline key areas within IPM that would benefit from a thorough evolutionary understanding and allow students to apply an evolutionary framework on current pest management problems with scenario based learning. In lectures by internationally leading scientists, we aim to showcase current empirical findings and provide a vision for future research directions. As communication between scientists working in evolutionary biology and agriculture may be hampered as a result of barriers between these research communities, we will discuss the difficulties and advantages of enhanced communication among biological research fields as well as between researchers and society.

Meeting, 1.5 days

Day 1 (full day)

Morning

Introductory lectures by course leaders on IPM and how evolutionary research could contribute to IPM

Afternoon

Lectures by invited speakers with examples on how evolutionary research could improve pest management (see suggestions of speakers below)

Scenario based learning in groups, based on the literature sent out beforehand, on a pest management case study where different perspectives and research areas need to be included to solve the problem

Day 2 (half day)

Morning

Lecture on how to perform interdisciplinary research

Group discussions on how to integrate their own research with either pest management or evolutionary biology

Short presentations of their research ideas following the group discussions

Closing remarks

Learning outcome:

Following the course, the students are expected to:

• Understand how leading scientists have made use of evolutionary biology in an applied context.

• Understand the holistic approach of integrated pest management

• Reflect about how evolutionary biology and pest management could be integrated in the PhD student´s own research project.

• Consider how new research ideas could be developed by integrating different fields.

Additional information

Responsible department

Department of Plant Protection Biology