Nematode Pathogenesis of Insects and Other Pests ― Ecology and Applied Technologies for Sustainable Plant and Crop Protection

Achieving a sustainable agriculture requires integrating advances in multiples disciplines, covering both fundamental and applied research in a common objective: enhancing crop health for better productions. This first volume of the Series “Sustainability in plant and crop protection” presents a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary compendium about the recent achievements in the use of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) as biological control in a global scale. The volume is organized in a first section discussing the last discoveries on the biology and ecology of the EPN, a second section covering the advances on the EPN productions and release, and a third section with multiples case-studies in which the concepts and ideas on the two previous sections are integrated and discussed. An essential tool for researchers and professionals working to advance in the sustainable use of our resources.

Dr Raquel Campos-Herrera is working on the ecology and biology of entomopathogenic nematodes since her PhD program in 2001, developed in the Spanish Council of Research (CSIC)-Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She received her PhD in 2006 with the Thesis entitled “The entomopathogenic nematodes from La Rioja and their symbiotic bacteria”, which was awarded with the European Mention and the Extraordinary Award as the best PhD in Zoology, Ecology and Botany in the University Complutense from Madrid. She has self-funded her whole career as young scientist, obtaining different fellowships and grants to support her PhD program (Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, and post-graduate CSIC program) and the postdoctoral research at the University of Florida (USA) and Instituto de Ciencias Agrarias (ICA-CSIC) (Ramon Areces Foundation and Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development). Recently, she joined the laboratory of Fundamental and Applied Research in Chemical Ecology (University of Neuchatel) in October 2013. Here she develops the project “Applications of entomopathogenic nematodes for a sustainable control of soil insect pests”, granted by the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of the NRP68 “Sustainable use of Soil as a Resource”, appointed until March 2016. During her development as young researcher, she has participated in 11 national and european grants and was PI in two regional grants to study the entomopathogenic nematode biology and ecology for native Spanish isolates.