Sara Bothwell Home  Directory Sara Bothwell
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| Research Focus | |
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Lanscape influences on biodiversity and conservation biological control.
Biological control of pest insects is a critical component of both organic agriculture and of reducing pesticide use in more conventional agriculture. There have been controversies surrounding its use however, primarily whether biological control can be effective under the intensity of disturbance characteristic of annual cropping systems. A second debate is whether biodiversity of natural enemies contributes to control of pests. My approach to addressing these two controversies has been to consider the availability of extra-farm resources for natural enemy support at a landscape scale, to test for pest control rates associated with landscape variation, and to investigate the diversity of parasitoids involved. In my dissertation research, I am testing the hypotheses that a) landscape context is a determinant of control rates by parasitoids and b) parasitoid community diversity benefits biological control efforts. |
| Courses Taught | |
ENVS 24 (Ecology)
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| Education History | |
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B.A. Vassar College, 1997, Biology |
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