Pests and Pesticides

Pesticides
• Pesticides are chemicals that are
designed to kill pests.

• A pest is an organism that humans

consider harmful or inconvenient.
– E.g.: weeds, insects, fungi, rodents
 Why are pesticides used?

• Pests can destroy crops. This costs

farmers money. (e.g. estimated that
30% of crops in Canada is lost to pests)

• Pests can carry diseases (e.g.

mosquitoes carry Malaria)
 4 Types of Pesticides:
• Herbicides : kills plants
• Insecticides : kills insects
• Fungicides : kills fungi
• Bactericides : kills bacteria
 History of Pesticide Use
• Pesticides started being used around 500 B.C.
when sulfur was used to repel insects.

• 15th century: arsenic, lead and mercury were

applied to crops as insecticides

• 1700’s: farmers started extracting chemicals

from plants that had developed defenses against
insects.

• 1939: Paul Mueller discovered that DDT, a

laboratory made chemical, was an effective
insecticide
 2 categories of Pesticides:
• Water soluble:
– will dissolve and wash away (not “persistent”)
– can be harmful and affect nervous system of organisms

• Fat Soluble:
– will dissolve in fatty tissue
– stay in the body
– will be passed on in the food chain
– E.g. DDT
 Dichloro, Diphenyl Trichloroethane
(DDT)
• Pesticide that is suitable for
bioamplification/biomagnification
– Has a half-life of 15 years
• That is, every 15 years the amount left in the system will be reduced by
one half.
• If you use 100 kg of DDT, after 15 years it will be reduced to 50 kg, and
after another 15 years it will be 25 kg, and so on…

NOTE: Modern pesticides are designed to last

one growing season and then break down
into less harmful substances.
 Bioaccumulation & Bioamplification
• Bioaccumulation
– an increase in the concentration
levels of a pesticide within the body of
an organism over time

• Bioamplification/Biomagnification
– a species at a higher trophic level
feeds on more than one organism
below it therefore pesticide
concentrations tend to increase rapidly
the higher up the food chain you look
 Effects of DDT in Birds
• Shell thinning
1. Carnivorous birds, such as peregrine
falcons and bald eagles, eat other birds,
dead animals and fish which contain a
build-up of DDT
2. DDT causes the shells to become too thin
to allow the large females to sit on the
eggs without them breaking
3. Since eggs are being broken, the overall
population of these birds is declining
• The peregrine falcon almost became
extinct in Canada because of DDT use.
• After DDT was banned in the US and
Canada in the early 1970’s the bird
populations began to recover.
• DDT bioaccumulates in humans the
same as it would other animals
• Male birds have also become more
feminine as the DDT mimics female sex
hormones
 Resistance
• When pests are no longer affected by the
chemical
- particularly for bactericides and insecticides
because of these pests’ high reproduction rate

• Some insects have genes that help them

survive the pesticide application. These pests
pass on this gene, eventually making the
pesticide ineffective.
 Questions
1. Not all countries, like Mexico, for example, have
banned the use of DDT. Since birds migrate from
winter to summer from one country to another, do
you think the birds are 100% safe from the
presence and the effects of DDT? Why?
2. DDT is used responsibly in mosquito-infested parts
of Africa. This saves millions of lives by combatting
an often lethal disease called malaria, which is
carried by mosquitoes. Do you think there should
be a world-wide ban on the use of DDT? Explain
why or why not.
3. How do you think a pesticide like DDT would affect
the overall biodiversity (the number of different
types of organisms in an area) in an ecosystem?