Tritrophy- A new dimension in IPM - A review

In the natural ecosystem, plants and their arthropod pests have evolved a set of interactions with each other and also pests and their natural enemies such as parasitoids, predators, pathogens and birds. In the new millennium, analysis of interactions amongst these community components is very much necessary to enhance the effectiveness of pest management strategies. This will also help in developing augmentative and alternative components in a Bio-intensive IPM system and make it more sustainable. Most of the interactions between host plants, insect pests and natural enemies result from interacting mechanisms such as ecosystem energy/resource flow (involving trophic and allelochemical relationships) and habitat modifications. In a trophic dynamic sense, all plant pests use plants as their food source and are primary consumers while beneficial arthropods or the natural enemies are secondary consumers. Consequently, tritrophic interactions occur when plant characteristics especially chemicals are passed through the insect pest consumer to the secondary level consumer.