Aug 2026· Insects· Vol 17, pp. 808· 0 citations· 154 references
Medicine
TL;DR
This review explains how plant odors, insect pheromones, and other chemical cues can be used to improve biological control in agriculture and discusses how these signals can be combined with habitat management, flowering plants, push–pull systems, attract-and-reward strategies, plant breeding, and genetically engineered crops.
Abstract
Simple Summary Insect pests cause serious losses in many crops, and their control often depends heavily on chemical pesticides. Although pesticides can be effective, their repeated use may create environmental risks and can also affect beneficial insects that naturally help control pests. Plants, however, have their own ways of defending themselves. When attacked by herbivorous insects, many plants release specific odors that can be detected by predators and parasitoids. These beneficial insects use herbivore-induced plant volatiles, including terpenoids, green leaf volatiles, and compounds such as methyl salicylate, to locate pest-infested plants and reduce pest populations. This review explains how plant odors, insect pheromones, and other chemical cues can be used to improve biological control in agriculture. It also discusses how these signals can be combined with habitat management, flowering plants, push–pull systems, attract-and-reward strategies, plant breeding, and genetically engineered crops. Together, these approaches may support natural enemy conservation, although their effects on pest suppression, crop yield, and pesticide use must be confirmed under field conditions.
Sustainable farming faces an ongoing challenge from thrips, which are widespread agricultural pests that cause severe crop damage and spread harmful plant viruses. The overuse of chemical pesticides has backfired, leading to pest resistance, leaving toxic residues in the soil, and harming beneficial organisms, highlighting the need for eco-friendly alternatives for thrips management. Using biological controls offers a reliable path forward by capitalising on the natural interaction between predatory insects and plant-derived compounds. Beneficial organisms, such as Amblyseius swirskii (predatory mites) and minute pirate bugs, work alongside a variety of parasitoids to control thrips populations naturally. Furthermore, microscopic allies such as beneficial nematodes and specialised fungi (Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae) can be deployed to target pests at vulnerable points in their life cycles. Turning to botanical sprays, such as tobacco and neem-derived azadirachtin, also allows farmers to reduce dependency on synthetic chemical treatment. Combining these biological agents and botanical extracts into a unified Integrated Pest Management (IPM) model helps growers protect their crop yields, reduce chemical footprints, and build long-term agricultural resilience.
L. Gehlot, Mukul Gehlot, N. Parihar· Biological Forum· 0 citations
The escalating reliance on synthetic chemical pesticides in modern agriculture has precipitated critical ecological concerns, including environmental degradation, human health risks, and the emergence of insecticide-resistant pest populations. Biological control, or biocontrol, emerges as a vital, sustainable alternative that leverages natural enemies—such as predators, parasitoids, and pathogens—to regulate insect pest densities below economic injury levels. This paper examines the application of biological control agents (BCAs) for managing insect pests in agricultural systems, highlighting the efficacy of various agents including entomopathogenic fungi, bacteria, viruses, and predatory arthropods. By integrating BCAs into broader Integrated Pest Management (IPM) frameworks, agricultural systems can reduce chemical dependencies while fostering biodiversity and ecological balance. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms of action, successful case studies, and the challenges associated with field application, such as environmental sensitivity and the need for specialized deployment strategies. Furthermore, the paper addresses the shift toward "smart" biocontrol, incorporating modern biotechnological tools and precision agriculture to enhance the stability and predictability of pest management outcomes. Ultimately, the systematic application of biological control agents represents a cornerstone of sustainable agriculture, essential for achieving global food security, preserving agro-ecosystem health, and mitigating the detrimental impacts of climate change on crop production.
Research Author· European Journal of Food, Fa...· 0 citations
Simple Summary Rice production is severely affected by insect pests such as planthoppers, stem borers, leafhoppers, and gall midges, which cause major yield losses worldwide. Beneficial insects and other natural enemies, including spiders, ladybird beetles, dragonflies, damselflies, and parasitoid wasps, play a key role in suppressing these pests and reducing reliance on chemical insecticides. This review highlights how habitat management and ecological engineering can strengthen biological control in rice ecosystems. Practices such as maintaining non-crop vegetation, flower strips, banker plants, cover crops, and shelter habitats provide food, alternative hosts, and refuges that enhance the abundance and effectiveness of natural enemies. Increasing biodiversity and landscape heterogeneity generally improves pest suppression, lowers pesticide use, and supports sustainable rice production. Several case studies demonstrate that ecological engineering and conservation biological control can successfully reduce populations of major rice pests, particularly brown planthoppers and stem borers. Overall, the review concludes that habitat management and ecological engineering are essential components of IPM. By conserving and enhancing beneficial insects, these approaches offer environmentally friendly, sustainable solutions to improve rice productivity while reducing reliance on synthetic pesticides. Finally, we outline technical recommendations and future research trajectories to facilitate the integration of habitat manipulation into standard rice integrated pest management frameworks globally.
Plants have evolved sophisticated defense mechanisms against phytophagous insects through long-term coevolution, while insects have developed diverse adaptive strategies to overcome plant defenses. Plant specialized metabolites (SMs), also known as secondary metabolites, comprise a diverse group of chemical compounds, many of which function as chemical defenses against insect herbivores. A better understanding of the roles of plant SMs in plant-insect interactions should facilitate development of novel biopesticides, the exploitation of pest-resistance traits for crops, and the development of sustainable strategies of insecticide resistance managements. In this review, we summarize the regulation mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis and accumulation of plant SMs in response to insect herbivory, discuss the multiple effects of plant SMs on insect behavior, physiology, and development, and describe the adaptive mechanisms that enable insects to cope with plant chemical defenses. Finally, we highlight future research directions and discuss the potential applications of plant SMs in sustainable pest management. This review provides a comprehensive overview of plant‒insect interactions mediated by plant SMs and offers perspectives for developing environmentally friendly pest management strategies.
