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Encouraging beneficial insects, by providing suitable living conditions, is a pest control strategy, often used in organic farming, organic gardening or integrated pest management. Companies specializing in biological pest control sell many types of beneficial insects, particularly for use in enclosed areas, like greenhouses .
A neuron (green and white) in an insect brain (blue) Insect cognition describes the mental capacities and study of those capacities in insects. The field developed from comparative psychology where early studies focused more on animal behavior. [1] Researchers have examined insect cognition in bees, fruit flies, and wasps. [2] [3]
The "Spanish fly", Lytta vesicatoria, has been considered to have medicinal, aphrodisiac, and other properties. Human interactions with insects include both a wide variety of uses, whether practical such as for food, textiles, and dyestuffs, or symbolic, as in art, music, and literature, and negative interactions including damage to crops and extensive efforts to control insect pests.
Edward H. Hagen writes in The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology that sociobiology is, despite the public controversy regarding the applications to humans, "one of the scientific triumphs of the twentieth century." "Sociobiology is now part of the core research and curriculum of virtually all biology departments, and it is a foundation of the ...
Insects that pose disadvantages are considered pests. Some species can cause indirect damage by spreading diseases, and these are termed as disease vectors. Those that are beneficial include those that are reared for food such as honey, substances such as lac or pigments, and for their role in pollinating crops and controlling pests. [1]
Beneficial insects can include predators (such as ladybugs) of pest insects, and pollinators (such as bees, which are an integral part of the growth cycle of many crops).). Increasingly certain species of insects are managed and used to intervene where natural pollination or biological control is insufficient, usually due to human disturbance of the balance of established ecosys
Mutualism is an interaction between species that is beneficial to both. A familiar example of a mutualism is the relationship between flowering plants and their pollinators . [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The plant benefits from the spread of pollen between flowers, while the pollinator receives some form of nourishment, either from nectar or the pollen itself.
Insectary plants are those that attract insects. As such, beneficial insectary plants are intentionally introduced into an ecosystem to increase pollen and nectar resources required by the natural enemies of the harmful or unwanted insects pests. Beyond an effective natural control of pests, the beneficial insects also assist in pollination.