Garden pests plague everyone who has ever raised vegetables, from backyard gardener to professional horticulturists, farm managers, and agrobusiness professionals. The economic impacts of vegetable pests are enormous. To manage and minimize the adverse impacts of pests, it is important to identify exactly which pests are afflicting crops. The Handbook of Vegetable Pests is intended to assist anyone in need of an easy-to-use, and yet comprehensive, survey of all pests likely to be encountered in North America. This Handbook provides thorough identification guides, descriptions of pest life history, and pest management recommendations. The text is well illustrated with hundreds of easy-to-use line drawings, is cross-referenced to the professional and scientific literature, and includes color plates for ease of insect pest identification. Every gardener, horticulturalist, farm manager, and plant science professional should have this Handbook as a ready desk reference.Key Features* Identification guides list the major and minor pests of each crop family and provide distinguishing characteristics for each pest * Includes pest profiles that describe the appearance, life history, and management of various pests * Over 600 black and white line drawings and over 100 color images to further aid in identification* Detailed glossary provided to help with the definition of some of the less known terms

A comprehensive guide to the insects of North America contains information--including life histories, behaviors, and habitats--on every major group of insects found north of Mexico.

The present volume contains the contributions of the keynote speakers of the BIOMAT 2007 Symposium as well as selected contributed papers in the areas of mathematical biology, biological physics, biophysics and bioinformatics. It contains new results on some aspects of Lotka?Volterra equations, the proposal of using differential geometry to model neurosurgical tools, recent data on epidemiological modeling, pattern recognition and comprehensive reviews on the structure of proteins, the folding problem and the influence of Allee effects on population dynamics.This book contains some original results on the growth of gliomas: the role played by membrane channels on activity-dependent modulation of spike transmission; a proposal for reconsidering the concept of gene and the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for gene expression; a differential geometric approach to the influence of the drying effect on the dynamics of pods of Leguminosae; the comparison of agent-based models with the approach of differential equations on the study of selection mechanisms in germinal centers; and the synchronization phenomenon for protocell systems driven by linear kinetic equations.

Pedigo and Rice expertly combine basic and applied entomology in this reader-friendly, pedagogically rich text. Assuming only a background in elementary biology, the authors present the major elements of general entomology before moving on to concepts in insect biology and ecology necessary for understanding insect pest management. Both theory and practice are emphasized as readers explore pertinent topics. The authors discuss pest-management issues—both preventive and curative—as aspects of applied ecology, with solutions considering environmental quality, profitability, and durability. Insect diagnostic boxes with detailed information on distribution, importance, appearance, and life cycles of particular species and groups appear throughout the text. Readers will come away with a comprehensive introduction to applied, sustainable pest management appropriate for whatever commodities they must handle.

This text brings together fundamental information on insect taxa, morphology, ecology, behavior, physiology, and genetics. Close relatives of insects, such as spiders and mites, are included.