Conservation Biological Control in IPM and Organic Systems

Dear colleagues,

The conservation and enhancement of naturally occurring predators and parasitoids of crop pests are paramount for sustainable agriculture. This can be achieved by matching habitat management with pest suppression techniques and agronomic practices not detrimental to natural enemies. This Special Issue will focus on recent advances and applications toward the inclusion of conservation biological control in advanced IPM strategies and organic farming.

We welcome original research articles as well as reviews and meta-analyses dealing with:

- Habitat management practices at different spatial scales to designing areas surrounding crops to provide natural enemies with alternative food sources, overwintering sites or refugees from agricultural disturbances;

- Impact of agronomic practices (such as tillage, cover cropping, etc.) on natural enemies;

- Field and laboratory studies on insecticides selectivity, including so-called reduced-risk insecticides and biopesticides;

- Mitigation methods to decrease the impact of pest suppression techniques on natural enemies;

- Applications of plant elicitors to maximize the “attract and reward” method;

- System and multicomponent approaches to enhance conservation biological control.

Dr. Antonio Masetti
Prof. Giovanni Burgio
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.