Types of Pests

Dr. Aamna Habib

March 10, 2020
 Common understanding of Pests
• Any organism that is noxious, destructive or troublesome
• May be one or more of the following:
• Disease causing
• Annoying
• Feed on agricultural or ornamental plants
• May harm/attack/kill domestic animals
• Rotting or spoiling organisms (fungi, bacteria, termites,
carpenter ants)
• Weed plants that compete with cultivated plants
 What is a pest ?
• A pest is any living organism which competes
with human, domestic animals or desirable
plants for food or water.
• At the same time they spread diseases to
mankind and harms the environment.
 Remember
• an organism can be a pest in one setting but
beneficial, domesticated or acceptable in
another.
– European rabbits introduced to
Australia caused ecological damage beyond the scale
they inflicted in their natural habitat
– Many weeds are also seen as useful under certain
conditions, for instance Patterson's curse is often
valued as food for honeybees and as a wildflower,
even though it can poison livestock.
 plant pest
• A pest is any species, strain or biotype of plant,
animal, or pathogenic agent injurious to plants or
plant products. 
• Plants may be considered pests themselves if
an invasive species.
• Plant pests can be classified as
– monophagous, 
– oligophagous,
– polyphagous 
• according to how many hosts they have.
 Animal Pests
• Animals are called pests when they cause damage
to agriculture by feeding on crops or parasitising livestock,
such as codling moth on apples, or boll weevil on cotton.
• An animal could also be a pest when it causes damage to a
wild ecosystem or carries germs within human habitats.
• Examples of these include those organisms
which vector human disease
– rats and fleas which carry the plague disease, 
– mosquitoes which vector malaria,
– ticks which carry Lyme disease.
• The animal groups of greatest importance as pests (in
order of economic importance)
are insects, mites, nematodes and gastropods.
• Plant pests can be classified by
– feeding type, whether biting and chewing; piercing and sucking;
or Lapping and chewing.
• Another approach is to class them by population presence
as
– key pests,
– occasional pests,
– potential pests.
 What is Pest control?
• Pest control refers to the regulation or
management of a species defined as a pest,
usually because it is perceived to be
detrimental to a person’s health, the ecology
or the economy.
 What we learned up till now
Types of pests
• Insects
• Arthropods
• Microbial organism
• Weeds
• Mollusks
• Cockroach, termites, beetles &flies
• Spiders
• Bacteria
• Any plant growing where they are unwanted
• Snails ,slugs &ship worms
 Types of pests
• Vertebrates
– Birds
– Amphibians
– Mammals
• Invertebrates
• Agricultural and domestic anthropodes
• Tree and forest pests
• Ectoparasites
• Nematodes
• Gastropod molluscs
 Birds
• A group of warm-blooded Vertebrates
of class Aves
• Characterized by feathers, toothless beaked
jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a
high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart,
and a strong yet lightweight skeleton.
• Birds live worldwide and range in size from the
5 cm (2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m
(9 ft) ostrich.
 Why we put birds as insects
• Pigeons and seagulls eat human food and
carry disease
• Many birds, such as crows, eat crop
• Woodpeckers peck at rooftops and also nest in
them. They cause structural damage to
houses.
 Amphibians
•  Small vertebrates that need water, or a moist
environment, to survive.
– frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts.
• All can breathe and absorb water through
their very thin skin. 
 Amphibians
• Cane toads have had serious negative effects
on many ecosystems to which they have been
introduced, especially in Australia.
• The toad's skin is toxic, killing many wild and
domestic animals that attempt to eat it
 Mammals
• Mice, rats, and other small rodents damage
crops and stored produce.
• Rabbits as an introduced species in Australia
decimate native plant populations there.
• Gophers, groundhogs,and moles destroy lawn
• Beavers destroy trees.
 Mammals
• Vampire bats drink the blood of livestock.
• Eastern grey squirrels cause damage to homes,
particularly to rooflines and attic spaces. They
can even inhabit spaces between walls.
• Tigers and leopards prey on farming
communities in (for example) parts of India.
• Wild boars or wild pig damage crops,
spread disease, and prey upon livestock
 Pest insects 
• The classification of an insect as a pest is a
subjective one, based on its potential damage to
human needs and/or natural
habitats and ecosystems.
• Pest insects can: damage or kill
agricultural crops, ornamental plants, or native
plants in situ; consume and/or damage harvested
food; cause illness or unproductivity in agricultural
animals (ie: cattle); and vector human diseases or
cause pain.
• Some insects are beneficial at one stage of life and
a pest at another stage, for example
many lepidopterans may be serious pests as larvae,
while they may be pollinators in adulthood.
• Some insects that are considered pests in human
settlements/gardens are actually more a beneficial
insect than pestiferous: example: bees (the main
pollinators of human food supplies)
 Instects
• Insects and humans cohabit the Earth and
have developed complex relationships. Insect
pests (less than 1% of all species) are those
insects that feed on, compete for food with, or
transmit diseases to humans and livestock.
• Ecosystems modified by human activities have
provided opportunities for insects, and species
that successfully adapt often become pests.
 Effects on Humans
• The human body provides food and shelter for the
crab louse and 2 forms of human louse (head and
pubic lice). 
• Fleas and bedbugs obtain food from human bodies
and inhabit human dwellings between blood meals.
• Out of doors, humans are attacked by blood-
sucking flies (mosquitoes, black flies, horse and
stable flies), which torment victims and may cause
toxic or allergic reactions.
• Many blood-sucking insects are vectors of human
diseases, picking up the disease organism while
feeding on an infected host (human or animal) and
infecting subsequent victims
• Human lice are important vectors of trench fever,
relapsing fever and epidemic typhus
• fleas can transmit plague bacilli from rodents to
humans; and different species of mosquitoes transmit
malaria and encephalitis
• The house fly, which occurs almost worldwide, breeds
on organic wastes and can carry disease organisms to
food
 Attacks on Livestock
• livestock is attacked by one or more species of lice,
which causes lack of vigour and stunted growth.
Blood-sucking flies (eg, face, horn and the introduced
stable fly) feed on and pester cattle, reducing growth
and milk production.
• In some areas, mosquitoes or black flies may be so
abundant that they reduce cattle feeding and may
cause stampedes.
• Native black flies can cause severe anemia and even
death.
 Effects on Plants
• insects cause significant losses, and their
control adds to the cost of many agricultural
and forestry products.
• Insects may attack any part of the plant, at any
stage of development.
 Effects on Plants
• Seed grains and potatoes are attacked by wireworms
• newly germinated seedlings of almost all crops are
attacked by cutworms, while flea beetles are a major
pest of newly germinated canola and other cruciferous
crops
• growing plants are fed on by climbing cutworms,
armyworms etc.
• Several species of beetles and moths may infest stored
grain, and other species of these groups feed on flour
and processed foods
 Effects on forests and woods
• The interior of lumber, poles and wooden
portions of buildings may be hollowed out to
form nests by black carpenter ants. In addition
to serious structural damage, these large ants
can be household pests, feeding on moist
foodstuffs and sometimes damaging fabrics
and paper products. 
• Termites(social cockroaches) can cause serious
structural damage to buildings
Termites cause structural damage Caterpillars cause crop damage