TY  - JOUR
T1  - Can Botanical Insecticides and Living Control Agents Share the Same Programme without Sacrificing Efficacy or Ecological Compatibility?
A1  - Viviana Rojas
A1  - Juan Herrera
A1  - Silvia Monroy
A1  - Luis Gutierrez
JF  - Entomology and Applied Science Letters
JO  - Entomol Appl Sci Lett
SN  - 2349-2864
Y1  - 2026
VL  - 13
IS  - 2
DO  - 10.51847/9zsh6ypjEF
SP  - 66
EP  - 77
N2  - Botanical insecticides and living biological-control agents are increasingly considered complementary components of integrated pest management, but their shared natural or biologically derived origin does not ensure that they can be combined without compromising pest suppression or beneficial-organism function. The central evidence gap is the absence of a sufficiently discriminating compatibility concept that separates target-pest efficacy from effects on predators, parasitoids and microbial agents across realistic exposure conditions. This original non-empirical article develops an evidence-grounded, explicitly non-validated compatibility synthesis by integrating evidence on natural-enemy selectivity, entomopathogenic fungi and bacteria, exposure timing, dose, formulation, behaviour, interaction classification and sublethal effects. The synthesis indicates that compatibility is not an intrinsic property of a botanical active ingredient or biological-control agent. It is a conditional relation among the exact product, living agent, exposure route, application sequence, environmental context and biological function being protected. Acute survival therefore cannot substitute for measurements of predation, parasitism, reproduction, development, microbial viability or virulence. Likewise, laboratory selectivity cannot be treated as evidence of field-programme compatibility, and increased mortality under a pairwise combination cannot alone demonstrate durable integrated-pest-management benefit. Interpretation is limited by heterogeneous assay methods, narrow taxonomic coverage, sparse chronic and multitrophic studies, and weak linkage between laboratory endpoints and ecosystem-service delivery. The principal implication is that programme design should proceed through staged, agent-specific and exposure-specific testing that preserves target efficacy while evaluating functional and ecological costs. Compatibility should consequently be expressed as a bounded evidence profile requiring prospective validation rather than as a universal safe–unsafe label.
UR  - https://easletters.com/article/can-botanical-insecticides-and-living-control-agents-share-the-same-programme-without-sacrificing-ef-adpxrdvhbb2yujr
ER  -