Some Demographic and Genetic Consequences of Environmental Heterogeneity for Biological Control

Economically important pests usually attack a crop or group of crops over a wide region in which there are geographic, local, and temporal variations in the environment. Effectiveness of any control program will therefore depend on the different responses of the crop, pest, and control organism to this pattern of environment. Usually the environmental heterogeneity is treated as an unavoidable complication in program evaluation, and attempts are made to work with “average” conditions.