Subodh Adhikari

University of Idaho | UID · College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

The Government of Nepal implemented a globally adopted integrated pest management (IPM) approach in the late 1990s to minimize the negative environmental effects of pesticides and keep pest damage below the economic injury level. Current farm management systems, land use patterns, heavy reliance on chemical pesticides, and climate change have exace...

As global climate change impacts ecosystems, establishing conservation priorities is crucial for managing threatened areas with limited resources. Biodiversity hotspots, typically defined by high degrees of endemism, play a key role in conservation. However, traditional hotspots may not capture the full extent of biodiversity, including functional...

Soil arthropods can affect plant growth and aboveground interactions directly via root herbivory and indirectly through nutrient cycling and interactions with soil microorganisms. Research on these effects of soil arthropods has focused on a few taxa within natural systems, largely neglecting agroecosystems and arthropod community-level effects. Th...

Climate change is expected to alter pressure from insect pests and the effectiveness of insect pollinators across diverse agricultural systems globally. In response to warming, insects are undergoing or are projected to undergo shifts in their geographic ranges, voltinism, abundance, and phenology. Effects on the focal insect species can be affecte...

Abstract As plant species expand their upper limits of distribution under current warming, some retain both traditional climate space and biotic environment while others encounter novel conditions. The latter is the case for Rhododendron campanulatum, a woody shrub that grows both above and below treeline at our study site in the Eastern Himalayas...

The Fescue aphid or Grass aphid, Metopolophium festucae, is a pest of forage grasses, wheat, and other small grains in its native range in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. It is an adventive pest in the Pacific Northwest, USA, several countries in South America, and in New Zealand. Infestations in small grains globally are attributed almost...

Cereal grass aphid is a newly invasive aphid pest in North America. It colonizes cultivated crops like wheat, barley and oat, sucking their juices and using them as host sites for reproduction, thus causing considerable damage. Integrating data gleaned from surveys of commercial fields conducted in the Pacific Northwest, this bulletin discusses the...

Climate change is expected to alter pressure from insect pests and the abundance and effectiveness of insect pollinators across diverse agriculture and forestry systems. In response to warming, insects are undergoing or are projected to undergo shifts in their geographic ranges, voltinism, abundance, and phenology. Drivers include direct effects on...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, has devastated every sphere of human society. Governments around the world implemented unprecedented policies designed to slow the spread of the disease and assistance to cope with its impacts. Such policies, however, are short-term and deba...

Ongoing environmental change affects pest populations, migration, and propensity to damage crops, but the responses to climatic drivers could vary among newly invasive and already naturalized closely related species. To compare these responses of a newly invasive aphid, Metopolophium festucae cerealium (Stroyan), with its naturalized congeneric [M....

Mayweed chamomile (Anthemis cotula) is a globally invasive, troublesome annual weed but knowledge of its genetic diversity, population structure in invaded regions and invasion patterns remains unstudied. Therefore, germplasm from 19 A. cotula populations (sites) from three geographically distinct invaded regions: the Walla Walla Basin (located in...

Mayweed chamomile (Anthemis cotula L.) is an annual crop weed that has become a substantial impediment to diversify traditional wheat-based cropping systems such as in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), USA. Some of the broadleaf rotational crops are vulnerable to the weed as they are less competitive or lack compatible herbicides for A. cotula managemen...

Quantification of variation for phenotypic traits within and among weed populations facilitate understanding of invasion mechanisms and management tactics. In the Pacific Northwest (PNW), USA, in response to climate change and to improve sustainability, producers are increasingly adopting broadleaf crops and cover crops, but Mayweed chamomile ( Ant...

Ground beetles (Carabidae) are beneficial insects providing ecosystem services by regulating insect pests and weed seeds. Despite several studies conducted on ground beetles worldwide, there is a lack of knowledge on how these insects are affected by differently managed organic systems (e.g., tillage-based versus grazed-based) compared to that of c...

The recently published article contained several errors in Table 3. The corrected table is provided here.

The globally invasive weed, mayweed chamomile (Anthemis cotula L.) is an annual, bushy, ill‐scented herb, originating in Eurasia. It is aggressively weedy in croplands, field‐side ditches, wet areas and along roadsides, especially in slightly acidic, nitrogen‐rich, clay‐loam soils. In addition to interfering with crop growth, the weed causes dermat...

Invasive plant species are a significant global problem, with the potential to alter structure and function of ecosystems and cause economic damage to managed landscapes. An effective course of action to reduce the spread of invasive plant species is to identify potential habitat incorporating changing climate scenarios. In this study, we used a su...

Diversified organic farming systems, compared to monoculture-based conventional systems, do not use synthetic insecticides and herbicides and often support a greater diversity of plant species. These agroecosystems also support greater abundance and higher species richness of pollinators and pest regulating beneficial insects like predators and par...

Covering about 40% of Earth’s land surface and sustaining at least 38% of global population, drylands are key crop and animal production regions with high economic and social values. However, land use changes associated with industrialized agricultural managements are threatening the sustainability of these systems. While previous studies assessing...

Industrialized farming practices result in simplified agricultural landscapes, reduced biodiversity, and degraded species-interaction networks. Thus far, most research assessing the combined effects of farming systems and landscape complexity on beneficial insects has been conducted in relatively diversified and mesic systems and may not represent...

Farming systems act as ecological filters impacting cropland associated biodiversity; however, the extent of these effects is largely unknown in the drylands of the Northern Great Plains (NGP), a key conventional and organic crop production region. In this 3-year (2013–2015) on-farm study, we addressed this knowledge gap by assessing the effects of...

BACKGROUND Cephus cinctus infestation causes $350 million in annual losses in the Northern Great Plains. We compared infestation and parasitism of C. cinctus in spring (including Kamut; Triticum turgidum, ssp. turanicum), and winter wheat cultivars grown in organic and conventional fields in Montana. In the greenhouse, we compared C. cinctus prefer...

Agricultural intensification and management systems have simplified the agricultural landscapes across Northern Great Plains, reducing natural habitats for pollinators and other beneficial insects. However, these negative effects can be offset through proper farm management systems such as diversified organic farming.

Background/Question/Methods Uncultivated patches of land within agricultural landscapes may enhance pollination services and crop yield by providing nesting habitat and flowering resources. However, agricultural management systems may influence the quantity, quality, and distribution of these uncultivated habitat patches. Here, we (i) assessed the...

Geographical variation in the interacting traits of plant–pollinator mutualism can lead to local adaptive differentiation. We tested Darwin's hypothesis of reciprocal selection as a key driving force for the evolution of floral traits of an alpine ginger ( Roscoea purpurea ) and proboscis length of a tabanid fly ( Philoliche longirostris ). We docu...

Farm management or cropping practices act as ecological filters influencing pollinator communities and their services. Between 2013 and 2015, we assessed the effects of organic and conventional farm management practices on pollinator communities and services at Big Sandy MT. In 2013 and 2014, pollinators were collected by placing cup traps every fi...

• Premise of the study: Interactions that limit lifetime seed production have the potential to limit plant population sizes and drive adaptation through natural selection. Effects of insect herbivory to apical meristems (apical meristem mining) on lifetime seed production rarely have been quantifi ed experimentally. We studied Cirsium altissimum (t...

As generalist predators of insect pests and weed seeds, carabid beetles are beneficial insects of agroecosystems that can help regulate pest populations. Previous studies have shown that farming systems can have both positive and negative effects on carabid beetle community structure as cover crops, weeds, pesticides, and tillage can affect their a...

This book has been prepared based on the research done on a new species: Pedicularis dendrothauma, an endemic to Nepal. While the study on floral phenology and pollination ecology is relatively new field of research, this work is first of its kind in Nepal. Study on floral phenology and pollination ecology of P. dendrothauma was carried out in the...

Beekeeping is one of the promising ventures for economically poor families in Nepal. Knowledge about the bee flora of a certain area is very crucial for the farmers. A study was conducted in mid hills of Central Nepal during 2003-04 and 2008-09 to monitor the common plant species visited by bees with their visiting time and seasons. The flowering p...

The phenological and ecological study on Punica granatum L., a cultivated and wild species found in outer Himalayan ranges and warm inner valleys (alt. 700 -2700m), was carried out during April and May of 2006 and 2007 in Kathmandu Valley. The study covered blooming time, size of flower, its correlation and interaction with the visitors and pollina...

Background/Question/Methods A study was conducted in Kaski and Lamjung districts of Central Nepal (during 2003/2004 and 2008/ 2009) to find out the plant species visited by the bees and their visiting time and season. The research questions were: which season is the main flowering season in these hilly regions? Which plants are the most commonly v...