The role of oviposition deterrence in insect resistance management: Onstat & Buschman versus Jongsma & Gould

Onstad & Buschman (2006) and later Buschman & Ramaswamy (2011) proposed that oviposition deterrence in combination with a Bt toxin would create a stable insect resistance management strategy. They used a model for the European corn borer to evaluate this combination of traits. They found that oviposition deterrence would help females avoid oviposition on toxic plants and the toxin would punish females that failed to avoid oviposition on toxic plants. Thus there would be greatly reduced selection for resistance either to the toxin or oviposition deterrence and the time to resistance was greatly extended. Jongsma & Gould et al. (2010) also showed that host non-preference (equivalent to oviposition deterrence) would greatly extend the time to resistance using a model for a generalized lepidopteron. They also suggested that females of polyphogous insects would be selected to avoid oviposition on the toxic host plant and would shift their oviposition to alternate host plants. Eventually, there would be no need for planting non-Bt refuges because the insects would no longer consider the first plant a host plant. The feasibility of such a host shift in the European corn borer will be discussed to evaluate the usefulness of oviposition deterrence on the one hand and the necessity of planting non-Bt corn refuges.