Abigail Cohen

Washington State University | WSU · Department of Entomology

Transmission of insect-borne pathogens is mediated by interactions between insects and plants across variable environments. Water stress, for example, affects the physiology, defense, chemistry, and nutritional balance of plants in ways that alter their tolerance to herbivores and pathogens. However, few studies have explored interactions between w...

Sustainable agroecosystems provide adequate food while supporting environmental and human wellbeing and are a key part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Some strategies to promote sustainability include reducing inputs, substituting conventional crops with genetically modified (GM) alternatives, and using organic productio...

Long-term monitoring networks that generate data on pest abundance are the foundation of integrated pest management. Monitoring can estimate local risk from pests and identify when pests first arrive in particular fields. However, while data on pest abundance are collected for the purpose of making management decisions in individual fields, it is o...

Grasslands are globally imperilled ecosystems due to widespread conversion to agriculture and there is a concerted effort to catalogue arthropod diversity in grasslands to guide conservation decisions. The Palouse Prairie is one such endangered grassland; a mid-elevation habitat found in Washington and Idaho, United States. Ants (Formicidae) are us...

Grasslands are globally imperiled ecosystems due to widespread conversion to agriculture, and there is a concerted effort to catalogue arthropod diversity in grasslands to guide conservation decisions. The Palouse Prairie is one such endangered grassland; a mid-elevation habitat found in Washington and Idaho, United States. Ants (Formicidae) are us...

Every year, the Student Debates Subcommittee (SDS) of the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) for the annual Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting organizes the Student Debates. This year, the SAC selected topics based on their synergistic effect or ability to ignite exponential positive change when addressed as a whole. For the 2019 Student D...

Understanding factors that affect the population dynamics of insect pest species is key for developing integrated pest management strategies in agroecosystems. Most insect pest populations are strongly regulated by abiotic factors such as temperature and precipitation, and assessing relationships between abiotic conditions and pest dynamics can aid...

Significance Organic agriculture promotes environmental and socioeconomic sustainability to a greater degree than conventional agriculture. However, it is unknown whether effects of organic agriculture on sustainability metrics such as biodiversity, crop yields, and profitability vary across the diverse landscapes where organic farming is practiced...

To promote food security and sustainability, ecologically intensive farming systems should reliably produce adequate yields of high-quality food, enhance the environment, be profitable, and promote social wellbeing. Yet, while many studies address the mean effects of ecologically intensive farming systems on sustainability metrics, few have conside...

The 2018 student debates of the Entomological Society of America were held at the Joint Annual Meeting for the Entomological Societies of America, Canada, and British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Three unbiased introductory speakers and six debate teams discussed and debated topics under the theme 'Entomology in the 21st Century: Tackling Insect Inva...

Biological control is affected by the composition of landscapes surrounding agricultural fields. Natural enemy communities are typically more diverse, and effective at providing biological control services, in complex compared to simple landscapes. However, the use of simple metrics to characterize landscapes, such as the proportion of agricultural...

Background/Question/Methods Compared to their rural counterparts, urban gardeners face reduced abundance and diversity of beneficial insects and increased invertebrate pest density. As a basis for developing ecologically-based pest management strategies for urban gardens, we asked: What are the temporal dynamics of pest and beneficial insects in...