New Perspectives in Pest Management

Dear Colleagues,

Human population growth and climate change are presently some of the most discussed challenges. Rising global temperatures, warmer winter minimum temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and water shortages are expected to affect the aggressiveness and spreading of urban and agricultural pests in ways that are largely unknown and highly species-specific. Changes in climate variability may also be significant, affecting the predictability and amplitude of outbreaks. Together, these issues are likely to affect the efficacy of protection technologies, and pest control measures such as host–plant resistance, natural enemies, biopesticides, and synthetic chemicals are likely to be affected by climate change.

In particular, global agriculture needs to face these challenges with urgency, and the efficiency and resilience of crop production needs to be improved. It is also necessary to increase the awareness, from the consumer side, of the linkages between food demand and dietary choice, global food security, and environmental outcomes.

At the same time, knowledge and technology have advanced on several different fronts and at an unprecedented speed. From remote sensing technologies with advanced imaging to “omics” with powerful computational systems, diverse new technologies are available that provide powerful tools to drive innovation in pest management. These novel technologies call for multi-disciplinary research collaborations between geneticists, agronomists, ecologists, software programmers, engineers, and other specialists. This Special Issue of the journal Applied Science calls for original research articles and relevant state-of-the-art reviews and perspectives dealing with new perspectives in pest management.

Dr. Tania Nobre
Dr. Luis Gomes
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• pest management
• genetic engineering
• remote sensing
• omics
• biotechnology