Entomologia Generalis: Call for papers for special issue: System-level integrated studies to increase the adoption of ‘green’ IPM tactics

Special Issue: Call for system-level integrated studies to increase the adoption of ‘green’ IPM tactics

The ‘green’ tactics (biological, biotechnological and agronomic, etc.) in IPM pyramid have been long popular in textbooks and publications, but their adoption by farmers is quite limited. It has been pointed out that pest management science often disregards farming system complexities. “Elegant” studies under simplified contexts are commonplace: most of the studies are performed within laboratory confines and the management tactics are mostly treated in an isolated rather than integrated fashion. This situation slows down the upgradation of the Technological Readiness Level (TRL) of those ‘green’ tactics and prevents their practical adoption infield. It is the time to revive the original intention of IPM – the “true integration”. Recently, a theoretical framework – Multidimensional Management of Multiple Pests (3MP), has been put forward to address this issue.

Increasing the “synergy” and “coverage” of various pest control tactics against multiple pests is the key to increase the “integration”. Relying on holism and systems thinking in crop protection science, manipulative experiments can be designed to consider the interactive effects of soil-crop-pest-natural enemy networks on pest prevalence (space dimension), and look at pest-pest interactions, more often indirectly, over the crop season (time dimension). In this special issue, the submissions of system-level integrated studies are welcome as it been advocated more recently. For instance, it is interesting to look at how two or more individual tactics could jointly suppress a given insect pest, how the suppression of one insect pest could indirectly impact the prevalence of another one sharing the crop, and furthermore, how those interactions could be modulated by abiotic factors in agroecosystems (e.g. soil fertilization) via bottom-up effects. This issue also intends to look beyond entomology. Insect pest-pathogen, insect pest-weed and insect pest-pollinator interactions are appreciated.

We encourage submission of holistic studies ranging from community, population, individual, to plant defense chemistry and transcriptome levels, under mesocosms and open-field conditions. The studies addressing the eventual interactive effects on crop yield and quality in real field conditions are encouraged, and the information shall be highly appreciated by farmers.

Submission deadline for the IPM tactics studies Special Issue is September 30, 2025

If you are interested in submitting a paper to the IPM tactics studies Special Issue, please check the Entomologia Generalis general guidelines.
To submit your paper, please register as an author in the journal's manuscript submission system. Please select the "IPM tactics studies" section there in order to submit your paper.