ABSTRACT
A pest emergence is defined as an outbreak of any already known or newly described organism within a defined geographical region. The causes of emergence of any insect pest species can be complex but can usually be related to human activities, movement of plants, the unintentional introduction of a vector for a pathogen and changes in agricultural practices. The sudden eruption of any pest arguably poses a threat to agriculture, food security, and the ecosystem. An assessment of incipient risks is necessary to accommodate conditions and to develop possible strategies to tackle problems. Today, a number of pests are emerging in different parts of the world and this phenomenon only seems to be increasing. This chapter summarizes all the important emerging pests including wheat aphid, white fly, pink bollworm, armyworm, maize borer, fruit fly, citrus psylla, mango mealybug, and red palm weevil found in Punjab, Pakistan. The chapter elaborates the distribution, host range, damage, and losses caused by these pests with emphasis on recent advanced trends for their sustainable management with future research directions. All of the possible sustainable nonchemical and chemical approaches are reviewed that could be the best options to confront these emerging and challenging insect pests. The strengths, weeknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) associated with insect pest management scenarios in Punjab, Pakisan are also summarized in this chapter. Furthermore, this chapter also highlights the important issues and strategies as well as short, medium, and longterm action-plans/ways-forward for effective and sustainable insect pest management.
