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Chasing the Red Queen:

The Evolutionary Race Between Agricultural Pests and Poisons
  • ISBN-13: 9781610915199
  • Publisher: ISLAND PRESS
    Imprint: ISLAND PRESS
  • By Andy Dyer
  • Price: AUD $78.99
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
  • Local release date: 13/02/2015
  • Format: Paperback 239 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Popular science [PDZ]
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In the race to feed the world's seven billion people, we are at a standstill. Over the past century, we have developed increasingly potent and sophisticated pesticides, yet in 2014, the average percentage of U.S. crops lost to agricultural pests was no less than in 1944. To use a metaphor the field of evolutionary biology borrowed from Alice in Wonderland, farmers must run ever faster to stay in the same place'i.e., produce the same yields.

With Chasing the Red Queen, Andy Dyer offers the first book to apply the Red Queen Hypothesis to agriculture. He illustrates that when selection pressure increases, species evolve in response, creating a never-ending, perpetually-escalating competition between predator (us) and prey (bugs and weeds). The result is farmers are caught in a vicious cycle of chemical dependence, stuck using increasingly dangerous and expensive toxics to beat back progressively resistant pests.

To break the cycle, we must learn the science behind it. Dyer examines one of the world's most pressing problems as a biological case study. He presents key concepts, from Darwin's principles of natural selection to genetic variation and adaptive phenotypes. Understanding the fundamentals of ecology and biology is the first step to “playing the Red Queen,a and escaping her unwinnable race. The book's novel frame will help students, researchers, and policy-makers alike apply that knowledge to the critical task of achieving food security.
Preface
 
PART I. Introducing the Red Queen

Chapter 1. The Never-ending Race: Adaptation and Environmental Stress
- All the genetics you'll need 
- The scale of evolution
 
Chapter 2. The Evolution of Farming: Scaling Up Productivity
- Patches, pests, and time lags
 
Chapter 3. Survival of the Fittest: Darwin's Principles
-Exponential growth
 
PART II. Ignoring the Red Queen
 
Chapter 4. Reductionist Farming: Losing Ecosystem Services
-Secondary compounds and crop plants
 
Chapter 5. A Weed by Any Other Name: Monocultures and Wild Species
-Adaptations, plasticity, and mutations
 
Chapter 6. Running Faster: Insecticide and Herbicide Resistance
 
PART III. Trying to Beat the Red Queen
 
Chapter 7. Exercises in Futility: Cases of Resistance
- Hidden mutations for resistance
 
Chapter 8. King Cotton vs. The Red Queen
-Trophic cascades
-Cotton varieties
 
Chapter 9. The Cornucopia of Maize vs. the Red Queen
-Who is the enemy?
-Corn varieties
 
Chapter 10. The Red Queen Trumps Technology: The Failures of Biotech
-Getting ready for the Roundup
-Advanced genetic issues
 
PART IV. Playing the Red Queen
Chapter 11. Understanding the Chase to Escape the Cycle
 
Chapter 12. Slowing the Response by Slowing the Attack
-How gene flow influences pesticide resistance
 
Chapter 13. Ecosystem Farming: Letting Nature Do the Work
-Jack of all trades or master of one?
-Living soil
 
Chapter 14. Integrated Systems and Long-term Stability
 
Epilogue
"Its message appeals to anyone concerned with the long-term viability of the post-modern food production system."
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