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OCR for page 170
Pesticide Resistance: Strategies and Tactics for Management.
1986. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Population Dynamics and the
Rate of Evolution
of Pesticide Resistance
ROBERT M. MAY and ANDREW P. DOBSON
For a wide range of organisms exposed to insecticides or the like,
the number of generations taken for a significant degree of resistance
to appear exhibits a relatively small range of variation, typically
being around 5 to 50 generations; we indicate an explanation, and
also seek to explain some of the systematic trends within these pat-
terns. We review the effects of insect migration to andfrom untreated
regions and of density-dependent aspects of the population dynamics
of the target species. Combining population dynamics with gene flow
considerations, we review ways in which the evolution of resistance
may be speeded or slowed; in particular, we contrast the rate of
evolution of resistance in pest species with that in their natural
enemies. We conclude by emphasizing that purely biological aspects
of pesticide resistance must ultimately be woven together with eco-
nomic and social factors, and we show how the appearance of pes-
ticide resistance can be incorporated as an economic cost (along
with the more familiar costs of pest damage to crops and pesticide
application I.
INTRODUCTION
During the 1940s, around 7 percent of the annual crop in the United States
was lost to insects (Table 11. Over the past two decades, this figure has risen
to hold steady at around 13 percent. Much detail and some success stories
are masked by the overall numbers in Table 1, but the essential message is
clear: increasing expenditure on pesticides and the increasing application of
pesticides have, on average, been accompanied by increased incidence of
170
OCR for page 170
POPULATION DYNAMICS
TABLE 1 Agricultural Losses to Pests in the United States
171
Percentage of Annual Crop Lost to
Year Insects Diseases Weeds Total
1942-1950 7 11 14 32
(average)
1951-1960 13 12 9 34
(average)
1974 13 12 8 33
1984 13 12 12 37
SOURCE: Modified from Pimentel (1976) and May (1977).
resistance, with the net result being an increased fraction of crops lost to
insects. Indeed, the fraction of all crops lost to pests in the United States
today has changed little from that in medieval Europe, where it was said that
of every three grains grown, one was lost to pests or in storage (leaving one
for next year s seed and one to eat).
Beyond these practical worries, the appearance of resistance to pesticides
illustrates basic themes in evolutionary biology. The standard example of
microevolution in the current generation of introductory biology texts is
industrial melanism in the peppered moth. This tired tale could well be
replaced by any one of a number of field or laboratory studies of the evolution
of pesticide resistance that would show in detail how selective forces, genetic
variability, gene flow (migration), and life history can interact to produce
changes in gene frequency. We believe such intrusion of agricultural or public
health practicalities into the introductory biology classroom may help to show
that evolution is not some scholarly abstraction, but rather is a reality that
has undermined, and will continue to undermine, any control program that
fails to take account of evolutionary processes.
In what follows, our focus is mainly on broad generalities. This paper
complements Tabashnik s (this volume), which deals with many of the same
issues in a very concrete way, giving numerical studies of models for the
evolution of resistance to pesticides by orchard pests.
CHARACTERISTIC TIME TO EVOLVE RESISTANCE
The discussion in this paper is restricted to situations where the genetics
of resistance involves only one locus with two alleles, in a diploid insect.
This is the simplest assumption to begin with. It does, moreover, appear to
be a realistic assumption in the majority of existing instances where detailed
understanding of the mechanisms of resistance is available. The stimulating
papers by Uyenoyama and Via in this volume indicate some of the important
complications that may arise when two or many loci, respectively, are in
OCR for page 170
172
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
valved in determining resistance. We further restrict this discussion to a
closed population, in which the selective effects of a pesticide act homo-
geneously in space; this assumption will be relaxed in later sections.
Following customary usage, we denote the original, susceptible allele by
S. and the resistance allele by R; in generation t, the gene frequencies of R
and S are p' and qua, respectively (with p + q = 11. The gentoype RR is
resistant, SS is susceptible, and the heterozygotes RS in general are of
intermediate fitness (but see below for discussion of exceptions). In the
presence of an application of pesticide of specified intensity, the fitnesses
of the three genotypes are denoted WRR, WRS, WSS: we assume WRR ' WRS '
wss.
The equation relating the gene frequencies of R in successive generations
is then the standard expression (Crow and Kimura, 1970~:
~_
WRRpt + WRSP'q'
WRRp2 + 2WRSp,q, + Wssqt
In the early stages of pesticide application, the resistant allele will usually
be very rare, so that p, << 1 and q, ~ 1. The initial ratio ply, will, indeed,
usually be significantly smaller than the ratio wRs/wRR or wss/wRs, so that to
a good approximation equation 1 reduces to
~, ~.
I
(1)
P. + 1 /P, - WRS/WSS ~
(2)
Suppose the allele R is present in the pristine population at frequency pO.
By compounding equation 2, we see that the number of generations, n, that
must elapse before a significant degree of resistance appears (that is, before
p attains the value pf ~ 1/2, for example) is given roughly by
(pf/pO) ~ (WRS/WSS)
(3)
We define TR to be the absolute time taken for a significant degree of
resistance to appear, and Tg to be the cohort generation time (Krebs, 1978)
of the insect species in question. Then n = TR/Tg, and the approximate
relation of equation 3 may be rewritten as
TR ~ Tg ln(pf/pO)lln(wRslwss).
I, ~. ~. . .
(4)
111S tO ne emphasized that equation 4 is a rough approximation. In particular,
if R is perfectly recessive, we have WRS = WSS, and equation 2 is an inad-
equate approximation to equation 1; even here, however, equation 4 is telling
us something sensible, namely, that TR is very long when R is perfectly
recessive (taken literally, equation 4 gives TR ~ °°)
Equation 4 shows that TR depends directly on the organism's generation
time Tg, but only logarithmically on other factors. In particular, TR depends
only logarithmically on (1) the initial frequency of the resistance allele, pO;
OCR for page 170
POPULATION DYNAMICS
173
(2) the choice of the threshold at which resistance is recognized, pf; and
(3) the selection strength, wRs/wss, which in turn is determined by dosage
levels and by the degree of dominance of R. Elsewhere in this volume, Roush
suggests that pO values may range from 10-2 to 10-13; this enormous range,
however, collapses to a mere factor of six separating highest from lowest
when logarithms are taken. Likewise, ratios of wss/wRs ranging from 10-~
to 10-4 or less all make similar contributions to the denominator in equation
4, which involves only the logarithm of this ratio.
Table 2 sets out values of TR for a variety of organisms (insects, and
parasites of vertebrates), under the selective forces exerted by various in-
secticides or other chemotherapeutic agents. Table 3 (see p. 188) attempts
a rough summary of the general trends exhibited in Table 2: we see that for
the great diversity of animal life embraced by Table 2, TR lies in the sur
prisingly narrow range of around 5 to 100 generations. We argue that such
relative constancy of TR, despite enormous variability in pO and wRs/wss, is
because TR depends on all these factors (except Tg) only logarithmically. We
will return to the systematic trends exhibited in Table 2 and crudely sum-
marized in Table 3, after the discussions of migration, density dependence,
and other miscellaneous factors.
The approximate expression for TR in equation 4 mixes factors that are
intrinsic to the genetic system underlying the resistance phenomenon (such
as Tg, pO, and the degree of dominance of R) with factors that are under the
direct control of the manager (such as dosage levels). Comins (1977a) sug-
gests a useful partitioning of these two kinds of factors. First, define the
relative fitnesses of the genotypes RR, RS, SS, to be 1: w~-~:w. Here w is
the fitness of the susceptible homozygotes relative to the resistant homozy-
gotes; w essentially measures the relative survivial of wild-type insects (high
dosage of pesticide implies low w). The parameter ,8 measures the degree
of dominance of R: if R is perfectly dominant, ,8 = 1; if R is perfectly
recessive, ,8 = 0; and in general, ,8 will take some numerical value inter-
mediate between O and 1. Equation 4 can now be rewritten as
TR = Tolln~llw'.
(5)
This separates the parameter w (which measures the selection strength as
determined by the dosage level) from the parameter To (which conflates
intrinsic genetic factors). The quantity To is defined as
To = Tg ln(pf/po)/,8
(6)
Parameters such as pO or ,B usually cannot be estimated, and To should be
thought of as a phenomenological constant, to be determined empirically in
the laboratory or in the field (Coming, 1977a).
Beyond explaining the general trends exhibited in Table 2 and other similar
compilations, equations 4 or 5 (or more refined versions of them) may be
OCR for page 170
174
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OCR for page 170
POPUL4TION DYNAMICS
177
used to make predictions about the way TR depends on pesticide dosage
levels or on degree of pesticide persistence in specific laboratory studies.
Some such work is discussed in the next section.
The above ideas also apply to the back selection or regression to population-
level susceptibility that may appear once a particular pesticide is no longer
used. As discussed elsewhere (Coming, 1984), it is possible in principle that
a pesticide may have cycles of useful life: the gene frequency of R first
increases under the selection pressure exerted by use of the pesticide; even-
tually R attains a frequency sufficiently high to produce a noticeable degree
of resistance, and shortly thereafter the pesticide is discontinued as ineffec-
tive; in the absence of the pesticide, usually wss > WRR, and selection will
now cause the frequency of R to decrease. Applying equation 4, mutatis
mutandis, to this back-selection process, we note that the time elapsed before
the population is again effectively susceptible to the pesticide will depend
on (1) the intrinsic fitness ratios wRR:wRs:wss, which measure the strength
of back selection in the absence of pesticide; (2) the frequency of R when
the pesticide is discontinued; and (3) how low a frequency of R is required
before reuse of the pesticide becomes sensible.
For factor 1 it has been shown that significant back-selection effects can
indeed occur (Georghiou et al., 1983; Ferrari and Georghiou, 1981~; Roush,
in this volume, estimates the rate-determining ratio wRs/wss to be in the
range 0.75 to 1.0 for untreated populations. Even when demonstrably present,
however, such back selection in the absence of a pesticide is typically weaker
than the corresponding strengths of selection for resistance under pesticide
usage, so that the denominator in equation 4 is smaller. For this reason alone,
"regression times" will tend to be longer than "resistance times," TR.
The influence of factor 2 is that regression will be faster if pesticide
application is discontinued before the frequency of R gets too high. The
possible complications discussed by Uyenoyama in this volume are more
likely to arise when PR is relatively high, which gives an additional reason
for prompt discontinuation of a pesticide to which resistance has appeared.
For factor 3 we observe that in pristine populations the frequency of R
may typically be around 10-6 to 10-8 (Roush, this volume). After use of a
particular pesticide is stopped, resistance will be unobservable and effectively
unmeasureable long before it attains levels as low as these pristine ones;
when the frequency of R is around 10-2, the population could easily be
considered to have regressed to effective susceptibility. Taking the above
numbers as illustrative, we see that resistance to the recycled pesticide is
likely to appear significantly more quickly than it did in the first instance
(TR depends on ln(1/pO), so that TR is three or four times faster for pa =
10-2 than for pa = 10-6 or 10-~.
In short, all three factors suggest that a population will usually take longer
to recover susceptibility than it did to acquire resistance, and also that re
. .
OCR for page 170
178
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
sistance will probably reemerge significantly faster following reintroduction
of the pesticide. These broad generalities need to be fleshed out by detailed
studies of specific mathematical models, backed where possible by long-
term laboratory studies of relevant pest-pesticide systems.
MIGRATION AND GENE FLOW
The above discussion assumed that pesticides would be applied uniformly
to a closed population of pests. In the field, the next generation of pests will
virtually always include some immigration from untreated (or more lightly
treated) regions, and this flow of susceptible genes will work against the
evolution of resistance. This is a particular instance of one of the central
questions of evolutionary biology: under what circumstances will gene flow
wash out the selective forces that are tending to adapt an organism to a
particular local environment? Earlier thinking of a qualitative kind suggested
that very small amounts of gene flow may be sufficient to prevent local
differentiation, and that geographical isolation was usually necessary before
local adaptation could lead to new races or species (Mayr, 19631. More
recently, population geneticists have shown that the occurrence of local
differentiation (or "clines" in gene frequency) depends on the balance be-
tween the strength and the steepness of the spatial gradient of selection versus
the amount and spatial scale of migration (Slatkin, 1973; Endler, 1977;
Nagylaki, 19771. May et al. (1975) gives a brief review of migration theory
and data. One illuminating study contrasts two examples of industrial me-
lanism: BiStOn betUIaria iS relatively vagile and thus is predominantly in the
melanic form over most of England's industrial midlands; individuals of
GOnOJOntiS bid~entata move significantly less in each generation, leading to
weaker gene flow and a patchy pattern of local adaptation with melanic forms
predominating near cities and wild types predominating in the intervening
countryside (Bishop and Cook, 19751.
This academic literature is directly relevant to the problem of the evolution
of pesticide resistance in the presence of migration. Comins (1977b) has
given an analytic study of the implications for pesticide management, and
Taylor and Georghiou (1979, 1982; Georghiou and Taylor, 1977) have pre-
sented numerical studies of particular examples. What follows is an attempt
to lay bare the essential mechanisms; the above references should be consulted
for a more accurate and detailed discussion.
To begin, suppose there is an infinite reservoir of untreated pests; within
this untreated reservoir the gene frequency of R will therefore remain constant
at the pristine value, which we denote by PR. In the treated region the next
generation of larval pests will come partly from the previous generation of
adults that have survived treatment (which tends to select for resistance) and
have not emigrated, and partly from those among the previous generation of
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POPULATION DYNAMICS
PR
179
R high
R low
M
migrat ion
~_ - - ~
increasing
FIGURE 1 The degree of pesticide resistance that evolves in a treated region in the
presence of immigration from untreated regions in each generation: PR is the gene fre-
quency of R in the untreated region, and m is a measure of the amount of migration
(gene flow) as a ratio to the strength of selection. This figure abstracts the more complex
and more detailed results of Commons (1977b), and is discussed more fully in the text.
untreated (and thus, largely susceptible) adults that have immigrated into the
treated region. As discussed by Comins (1977b) and others, we assume it is
the larval stage that damages the crops.
As shown in detail by Comins (1977b), the rate of evolution of resistance
in the treated region will, under the above circumstances, depend on (1) the
gene frequency of R in the untreated reservoir, PR; (2) the degree of dom-
inance of R. as measured by the parameter ,8 of equation 6 (actually, Comins
uses a parameter h for arithmetically intermediate heterozygotes, rather than
,8 for geometrically intermediate heterozygotes, but this is an unimportant
detail); and (3) the magnitude of migration in relation to selection, as mea-
sured by a parameter m. Specifically, the migration/selection parameter m
(Coming, 1977b) is defined as:
m = r/~1 -r)~1 - wit.
(7)
Here r is the migration rate (i.e., the fraction of adults in a given area that
migrate rather than "staying at home"), and w measures the strength of
selection (w = wss/wRR, as in equation 51.
If ,8 is low enough (R sufficiently recessive, corresponding very roughly
to ~ ' 1/2), the treated region will settle to a stable state in which the gene
frequency of R remains low, providing migration is sufficiently high (m
sufficiently large) (Coming, 1977b). Conversely, for relatively small m-val-
ues, selection overcomes gene flow and the system eventually settles to a
resistant state (with PR close to unity). This situation is illustrated schemat-
ically in Figure 1. In the treated region, the final steady state will be one of
resistance or continued susceptibility, depending on the strength of migration
relative to selection, as measured by m. There is a fairly sharp boundary
between these two regions (indicated by the hatched line in Figure 11; the
boundary depends weakly on the magnitude of PR, with slightly higher gene
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180
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
flow (higher m) being required to maintain susceptibility if PR is higher.
Comins shows that there can, in fact, be two alternative stable states for m-
values close to the fuzzy boundary in Figure 1, but we suppress these elegant
and rather fragile details in favor of the robust generalities shown schemat-
ically in Figure 1.
For ,B-values approaching unity (relatively dominant R), the treated regime
will eventually become resistant no matter how large the gene flow. Even
here, however, TR can be very long if m is relatively large (Coming, 1977b).
More generally, the untreated region will be finite. The situation is now
more symmetrical, with preponderately R genes migrating out from the treated
regions into the untreated ones at the same time as preponderately S genes
are flowing into the treated regions. The net outcome is that the gene fre-
quency of R in the untreated regions, PR, will slowly increase. As indicated
in Figure 1 (by the vertical trajectory from point a to point b), for any
specified value of m such increase in PR will in general eventually cause the
treated region to move sharply from susceptibility (low R) to resistance
(high R).
Thus, in the real world, resistance is always likely to appear in the long
run. Its appearance can, however, be delayed by management strategies that
keep m relatively high. Such strategies include maximizing the area of un-
treated regions or refugia, and keeping the dosage level as low as feasible
in treated regions: both of these actions work toward higher m-values. In
some situations it could pay to introduce susceptible adult males following
treatment, which could enhance the gene frequency of S in the next generation
without producing any additional pest larvae.
These analytic and numerical insights have been corroborated by laboratory
experiments on Musca domestica exposed to dieldrin at various dosage levels
and with various levels of influx of susceptibles (Taylor et al., 1983~. As
suggested by the mathematical models, the onset of resistance occurred sharply
and at a time TR that depended in a predictable way on dosage and immi-
gration levels. It would be nice to have more laboratory studies of this kind.
On the other hand, one should not place too much reliance on such laboratory
studies, because they unavoidably fail to include many of the density-de-
pendent mortality factors that are important in nature. This leads us into the
next section.
DENSITY DEPENDENCE AND PEST POPULATION DYNAMICS
Density-dependent effects can enter at any stage in the life cycle of a pest.
Such complications can be dissected with standard techniques, such as k-
factor analysis (Varley et al., 1972~. For simplicity the main density de-
pendence is assumed to act on the adult population, N' in generation t. Such
nonlinearity, or density dependence, in the relationship between the popu
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POP UL4TlON DYNAMICS
183
in the population dynamics of the pest. These ideas are developed more fully
and more rigorously by Comins (1977b).
Another way of setting out the ideas encapsulated in Figure 4 is to observe
that, other things being equal, resistance will appear more quickly in pop-
ulations with overcompensating density dependence and more slowly in pop-
ulations with undercompensating density dependence than in populations with
perfect density dependence; that is, TR increases as the density-dependence
parameter b of equation 8 decreases.
Several studies have attempted to assess lo-values of insect populations in
the field and in the laboratory (Hassell et al., 1976; Stubbs, 1977; Bellows,
19811. (These studies all use more complex models than equation 8, but the
distinction between overcompensating and undercompensating density de-
pendence remains clear and valid). Most, although not all, populations that
have been studied in the field show undercompensating density dependence.
Among these studies the field population exhibiting the most pronounced
degree of overcompensation is the Colorado potato beetle, which elsewhere
in this volume (see Georghiou) is singled out as notorious for the speed with
which it has developed resistance to a wide range of pesticides. In contrast
to field populations, most laboratory populations in the above surveys show
marked overcompensation. This difference between field and laboratory pop-
ulations probably derives from the many natural mortality factors that com-
monly are not present in the laboratory; whatever the reason, this difference
underlines the need for caution in extrapolating laboratory studies of the
evolution of resistance into a field setting.
Comins (1977b) gives an interesting discussion of the detailed dependence
of TR on b and m. For b = 1, we simply have the results summarized in
the preceding section. These amount to the rough estimate that, in the pres-
ence of a high level of migration,
TR(m; b = 1) = TR (0; b = 1) Migration/1 -wit. (9)
Here TR(O; b = 1) is the time for resistance to appear in a closed population,
and TR(m; b = 1) is the time for it to appear in the presence of migration;
w is the selection strength, as defined earlier (equation 5~; and the factor
labeled migration is a complicated term, involving m and other parameters,
that measures the effects of migration. We see that TR(m; b = 1) will increase
as selection becomes weaker (w larger), but that the dependence on w is
more pronounced at low dosage (TR ~ °° as w ~ 1) than at high dosage
(TR is roughly independent of w for w << 11.
For b < 1, the expression for TR(m; by is more complicated than given
in equation 9. Because undercompensating density dependence makes mi-
gration relatively more important, TR(m; b < 1) is always greater than TR(m;
b = 1) for given values of m and w. At low levels of selection (w ~ 1) the
differences created by subsequent density-dependent effects are relatively
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184
POP UNCTION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
4
3
2
In
41) 1
._
V,
o
o 4
b3
2
1
PESTS
_
I 1 1 1
NATURAL ENEMIES
J
l
- O 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
number of generations
FIGURE 5 The number of generations taken for pesticide resistance to appear in species
of orchard pests is contrasted with the corresponding patterns among their natural enemies
(data from Tabashnik and Croft, 1985~.
unimportant, but at high levels of selection (w << 1), density-dependent
effects cause migration to assume increasing importance when b ~ 1. The
result is that, for b < 1, TR is longest at low and high selection levels, and
shortest at intermediate values of w.
These theoretical insights of Comins (1977b) are concordant with the
numerical simulations and laboratory experiments of Taylor et al. (1983) on
flies with undercompensating density dependence. These authors found that
(for a given level of immigration) resistance evolved fastest at intermediate
dosage levels.
POPULATION DYNAMICS OF PESTS AND THEIR NATURAL ENEMIES
The propensity for pest species to evolve resistance more quickly than
their natural enemies do has often been remarked (Tabashnik, this volume;
Roush, this volume). Table 3 summarizes the trends for some groups of pests
and their natural enemies, and Figure 5 presents detailed evidence for orchard
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POPUC4TION DYNAMICS
185
crop pests and their predators. Clearly, such systematic differences in the
rate of evolution of pesticide resistance can cause problems.
One reason for these differences might be that the convolution between
plants and phytophagous insects has preadapted the latter to the evolution of
detoxifying mechanisms, whereas this is much less the case for the natural
enemies of such insects. Laboratory studies show that there are in fact no
simple, general patterns of this kind, and that under controlled conditions
the rate of evolution of resistance in prey and in predator populations depends
on the detailed molecular mechanisms underlying detoxification (Croft and
Brown, 1975; Mullin et al., 19821. This in turn has prompted a search for
pesticides that may be less lethal for natural enemies than for pests (Plapp
and Vinson, 1977; Rock, 1979; Rajakulendran and Plapp, 1982; Roush and
Plapp, 1982), or even the release of natural enemies that have been artificially
selected for resistance to specific pesticides (Roush and Hoy, 19811.
An alternative explanation for the typically swifter evolution of resistance
by pests than by their natural enemies lies in the population dynamics of
prey-predator associations (Morse and Croft, 1981; Tabashnik and Croft,
1982; Tabashnik, this volume). Suppose a pesticide kills a large fraction of
all prey and all predators in the treated region. For the surviving prey life
is now relatively good (relatively free from predators), and the population
is likely to increase rapidly. Conversely, for the surviving predators life is
relatively bad (food is harder to find), and their population will tend to recover
slowly. This argument can be supported by a standard phase plane analysis
for Lotka-Volterra or other, more refined, prey-predator models. Such anal-
ysis shows that, in the aftermath of application of a pesticide that affects
both prey and predator, prey populations will tend to exhibit overcompen-
sating density-dependent effects (essentially with b ~ 1), while predator
populations will tend to manifest undercompensation (b < 11. Returning to
the arguments developed in the preceding section and illustrated schematically
in Figure 4, we can now deduce that, for a given level of migration and
pesticide application, pest species (which effectively have overcompensating
density dependence) will tend to develop resistance faster than will their
natural enemies (which effectively have undercompensating density depend-
ence).
The detailed numerical studies of Tabashnik and Croft (1982) and Ta-
bashnik (this volume) also make the above point, but in more detailed and
specific settings. We think it is useful to buttress these concrete studies with
the very general observation that pesticide resistance is likely to appear faster
among pests than among their natural enemies, by virtue of the interplay
between population dynamics and migration; in this sense, the phenomenon
illustrates the general arguments made in the previous section.
Other work in this area includes the numerical studies by Gutierrez and
collaborators on management of the alfalfa weevil, taking account of pest
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186
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
population dynamics, natural enemies, and the evolution of resistance (Gu-
tierrez et al., 1976; Gutierrez et al., 1979), and Hassell's (in press) inves-
tigation of the dynamical behavior of pest species under the combined effects
of pesticides and parasitoids. There is much scope for further work, both in
the laboratory and with analytic or computer models.
MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS
This section comprises brief notes on a variety of factors that complicate
the analyses presented above.
Life History Details
Throughout we have considered pests with deliberately oversimplified life
cycles, in which pesticide application and density dependence acted only on
one stage. Comins (1977a,b; 1979) indicates how the analysis can be ex-
tended, rather straightforwardly, to a life cycle with n distinct stages (pupae,
several stages of larvae, adults). The numerical models of Tabashnik and of
Gutierrez and collaborators also include such realistic complications.
High Dosage to Make R Electively Recessive
As we noted earlier, if R is perfectly recessive, resistance will evolve
much more slowly than is otherwise the case (Crow and Kimura, 19701. It
has been argued that dosage levels high enough to kill essentially all het-
erozygotes may thus slow the evolution of resistance by making R. in effect,
perfectly recessive. This strategy, however, will work only if pesticide dosage
can be closely controlled in a closed population (Coming, 19841. This is
roughly the case for acaricide dipping of cattle against ticks, for example
(Sutherst and Comins, 19791. In general, lack of close control and/or the
immigration of pests from untreated regions is likely to render such a strate~v
infeasible.
Heterozygote Superiority
cat
There appear to be some instances among insects where the RS genotypes
are more resistant to an insecticide than either RR or SS (Wood, 19811. The
spotted root-maggot Euxesta notada may exhibit such heterozygous advan-
tage in the presence of DDT or dieldrin (Hooper and Brown, 19651. Although
familiar for rat resistance to warfarin, such heterozygous superiority raises
questions that do not seem to have been discussed for pesticides directed at
insects.
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POPULATION DYNAMICS
187
Pesticide Resistance Compared with Drug Resistance
Resistance to antibiotics and antihelminths poses growing problems in the
control of infections among humans and other animals. Reviewing recent
work, Peters (in press) concludes that both high dosage rates and the use of
drug mixtures may tend to retard the evolution of resistance. Drug admin-
istration to humans and other animals often does permit close control in a
closed population, such that these strategies have a chance to work (rather
than be washed out by gene flow; see Life History Details, above).
Pesticide Resistance Compared with Herbicide Resistance
Herbicide resistance has usually been slower to evolve than pesticide re-
sistance, even when the longer generation time of most weeds is taken into
account (Gressel and Segel, 1978; Gressel, this volume). Gressel suggests
that this is due to the presence of seed banks in the soil (corresponding, in
effect, to gene flow over time instead of space) and to the lower reproductive
fitness of resistant genotypes. Gressel and Segel's analysis (1978) leads to
an expression tantamount to equation 4 for TR, but with the denominator
replaced by:
lnEwRs/wss] ~ lnE1 + (WRs/Wss)({Rs~lfss)(llTsoi~]
(10)
Here fRs/fss is the ratio of the reproductive success of the two genotypes,
which may be 0.5 or less; Toil represents the number of years that a typical
seed spends in the seed bank, which can be 2 to 10 years. These two factors
can diminish the RR1SS selective advantage by an order of magnitude, leading
to significantly longer TR
The array of complications discussed above helps to explain several of the
general trends set out in Table 3.
ECONOMIC COST OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
The foregoing discussion has dealt exclusively with biological aspects of
the evolution of pesticide resistance. Such a discussion, however, only makes
sense if embedded in a larger economic context.
Some broad insight into the economic costs of pesticide resistance can be
obtained by the following modification of a more detailed analysis by Comins
(1979~. Agricultural costs associated with pests are of at least three kinds:
the damage done to crops, the cost of pesticide application, and the more
subtle costs arising from the need to develop new pesticides as the appearance
of resistance retires old ones. To a crude approximation we may think of
the parameter w (which measured the strength of selection in our previous
analysis) as determining the fraction of the pest population surviving pesticide
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188
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
TABLE 3 Some Possible Trends in the Way TR/Ts (the number of genera-
tions that elapse before resistance is noticed, as cataloged in Table 2)
Depends on the Biological and Environmental Setting
Generations
to
Resistance Organism
Variation
in Life History
Parameter or
Efficiency of Treatment
2
s
10
20
50
00
Gut Coccidia
Gut Nematodes
Mosquitoes
House Flies
Rats
Cattle Ticks
Phytophagous Insects
Weeds
Entomophagous Insects
Tsetse Fly
Mediterranean Fruit Fly
Large proportion of population
treated
High population densities and
strong density-dependent effects
Asexual reproduction and high
mutation rates
Increasing mobility into and out of
treated area
Increasing proportion of lifetime
fecundity prior to treatment
Seed Banks
Low population density and reduced
contact rate between organisms and
control agent
NOTE: The first column sets a scale (measured logarithmically in generations); the second column
places some organisms along this scale in a very approximate way; and the third column comments
on some rough correlations between the time scale and life histories or treatment efficiencies.
application; the cost of insect damage to the crop may then be estimated as
Aw. Comins (1979) argues that application costs are likely to be related
logarithmically to the fraction killed, whence these costs may be estimated
as B ln(1/w). A and B are proportionality constants that can be empirically
determined. Finally we need to estimate the amount of money that must be
set aside each year such that after TR years, when resistance necessitates the
introduction of a new pesticide, its development costs (C') will be met. If
the set-aside money compounds at an annual interest rate 8, a standard
calculation gives the average "cost of resistance" as C' [exp(~) - 11/Lexp(8TR)
- 11. (This is a more realistic estimate of the cost than that used by Comins,
1979.) The total annual cost that pests pose to the farmer is thus
Total cost = Aw + B in (1/w) + (STO)C/[exp(6TO/ln(1/w))- 11. (1 1)
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POP UL4TION DYNAMICS
Lo
_ tote I cost
~ ~" /
~ _ "/
° 0.5 ~/'-_
o - dose I ever
0 _
-
O ~ ~ I I
-2 -1 O ~2
log(8TO )
189
2
o
In
o
O
FIGURE 6 The solid curve shows the pesticide dosage (measured by ln(1/w)) that min-
~mizes the total economic costs associated with pests (crop damage, cost of pesticide
application, cost of developing new pesticides as resistance renders old ones ineffective).
The dashed line correspondingly shows the minimized total costs. The curves are based
on equation 11, with the parameters A, B. C here having the representative values 1.0,
0.2, 0.2, respectively (in some arbitrary monetary units); the basic features of Figure 6
are not qualitatively dependent on these parameter values. Both dosage levels and total
costs are shown as a function of the parameter combination bTo, which is essentially the
ratio between the intrinsic time scale associated with the evolution of resistance and the
doubling time of invested money (at interest rate b: for more precise definitions, see the
text).
Here equation 5 has been used to express TR in terms of the intrinsic time
scale for resistance, To' and the selection strength, 1/w. The cost constant
C is defined as C = C' [exp(~) - 11/~8To); in the limit ~ ~ O. C is essentially
the insecticide development cost per year, C = C'/To.
In accord with common sense, equation 11 says that as dosage levels
increase (that is, as w decreases), the cost associated with pest damage to
the crop decreases, but the cost of pesticide application increases, as does
the cost associated with developing new pesticides (because this task becomes
more frequent). For any specific set of values of A, B. C, and bTo, some
intermediate level of w (between O and 1) will minimize the total cost.
Figure 6 shows this optimal dosage level (solid line) and the associated total
cost (dosage + application t pesticide development; dashed line) as a
function of BTo for representative values of A, B. and C. For a combination
of low interest rates and/or intrinsically short times to evolve resistance (8To
<< 1), the optimum strategy suggests relatively low dosage rates (and the
lowest possible total cost is necessarily relatively high). Conversely, if BTo
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190
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF PESTICIDE RESISTANCE
1, optimum dosage rates are relatively high (and total costs are relatively
low).
In other words the right-hand side of Figure 6 corresponds to characteristic
resistance times being longer than the time it takes for invested money to
double (which is proportional to 1/~; resistance is effectively far off, and
optimal dosage can thus be high. The left-hand side of Figure 6 corresponds
to characteristic resistance times being short compared with the doubling
time of invested money; resistance looms, and therefore useful pesticide life
should be extended by lower dosages.
An essential point, which is given little attention elsewhere in this volume,
is that not all actors in this drama discount the future at the same rate.
Pesticide manufacturers may often tend to inhabit the right-hand side of Figure
6, seeing money as fungible, and taking ~ to be relatively high. Many farmers,
however, may tend instead to inhabit the left-hand side of Figure 6, with
assets tied up in their land, the future of which they would wish to discount
slowly.
In short even with goodwill and a clear biological understanding of how
best to manage pesticide resistance, different groups can come to different
decisions. This is a particular case of a more general phenomenon, discussed
lucidly by Clark (1976) for fishing, whaling, and logging.
CONCLUSION
Our aim has been to combine population biology with population genetics,
to show how migration and density-dependent dynamics can affect the rate
of evolution of resistance to pesticides. To advance this enterprise we need
a better understanding of the detailed genetic mechanisms underlying resis-
tance and more information about the population biology of pests and natural
enemies in the laboratory and in the field. Insofar as the dynamical behavior
of pest populations influences the rate of evolution of resistance, we must
be wary of extrapolating the laboratory studies into field situations; it would
be nice to see more control programs being designed with a view to acquiring
a basic understanding at the same time as they serve practical ends.
If dosage levels, migration, refugia, natural enemies, and other factors are
to be managed to slow down the evolution of pesticide resistance, efforts
must be coordinated over large regiOns. Some crops lend themselves to this,
and some do not. Often the best interests of individuals will differ from those
of groups, leading to problems that are social and political rather than purely
biological.
Beyond this, even with good biological understanding and coherent plan-
ning of group activities, it can be that different sectors pesticide manufac-
turers, farmers, planners responsible for feeding people-have different aims
stemming from different rates of discounting the future and the absence of
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POPUL4TION DYNAMICS
191
a truly common coinage. Population biology can clarify these tensions, but
it cannot resolve them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation,
under grant BSR83-03772 (RMM), and by the North Atlantic Treaty Or-
ganization Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (APD).
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