Combining Biological Control and Sterile Insect Technique to Enhance Invasive Pest Species Management

Dear Colleagues,

Ongoing climate change and globalization-related phenomena are increasing the impact of harmful insects, both native and invasive alien, on multiple aspects of the environment and economy, such as biodiversity, human health, and agriculture. The development of biotechnologies for the sustainable, long-lasting, and large-scale control of such organisms is, therefore, crucial.

Area-wide integrated pest management (AW-IPM) actions involve the integration of background knowledge of the biology of the target pest, its distribution in the selected area to manage and the synergistic application of several control strategies, such as Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), biological control, and other pest suppression methods.  Among the control methods, SIT, and Biological Control have a peculiar importance, for their least toxic effects on the environment.

This Special Issue of Insects will include original research articles and reviews that are addressed to highlight the complementary relationships between sterile insect technique and biological control to improve the suppression or even the eradication of a given target pest species. Special emphasis must be given to the combination of these two strategies, looking for possible integrations in terms of monitoring, control, dispersal, and direct and indirect synergisms.

Dr. Massimo Cristofaro
Dr. Gianfranco Anfora
Dr. Lloyd Stringer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.