Drawing from a four-year study of US science institutions that support biological control of arthropods, this article examines the decline in biological control institutional capacity in California within the context of both declining public interest science and declining agricultural research...

This overview and synthesis of the papers presented in this Special Issue suggests that there is a remarkably rich set of ethical issues having direct relevance to the development and practice of biological control for the management of agricultural pests. The perception and resolution of...

The potential negative impacts of biological pest control on non-target species have become the focus of a contentious debate. In this article, we use examples from both classical and augmentative biological control of fruit fly pests in Hawaii to address several important factors in assessing...

Of the four types of biological control, (1) natural, (2) conservation, (3) augmentation, and (4) importation), ethical concerns have been raised almost exclusively about only one type: importation. These concerns rest largely on fears of extinction of animal species. Importation biological...

Abstract We develop an empirical framework for evaluating the profitability of the use of barn owls to control rodent populations by locating nesting boxes in agricultural areas. Barn owls’ behavior is incorporated into the analysis by estimated functions that relate agricultural production to...