Pest (animal)

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Pest (animal)

A pest is an organism which has characteristics that are regarded by humans as injurious or unwanted. This is most often because it causes damage to agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
through feeding on crops or parasitising livestock

Livestock

Livestock is the term used to refer to a domesticated animal intentionally reared in an agricultural setting to produce things such as food or fibre, or for its labour....
, such as codling moth

Codling moth

The codling moth is a member of the Lepidopteran family Tortricidae. They are known as an agriculture pest, their larva being the common apple worm or maggot....
on apple

APPLE

This article is about the satellite APPLE. For the fruit apple, see Apple. For other uses see Apple .The Ariane Passenger PayLoad Experiment , was an experimental communication satellite with a C-Band transponder launched by Indian Space Research Organisation satellite on June 19, 1981 by Ariane 1, a launch vehicle of the European Spac...
s, or boll weevil

Boll weevil

The boll weevil is a beetle measuring an average length of six millimeters, which feeds on cotton buds and flowers. Thought to be native to Central America, it migrated into the US from Mexico in the late 19th century and had infested all US cotton-growing areas by the 1920s, devastating the industry and the people working in the American so...
on cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa....
. An animal can also be a pest when it causes damage to a wild ecosystem or carries germs

Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
within human habitats.

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Encyclopedia

A pest is an organism which has characteristics that are regarded by humans as injurious or unwanted. This is most often because it causes damage to agriculture

Agriculture

Livestock

Livestock is the term used to refer to a domesticated animal intentionally reared in an agricultural setting to produce things such as food or fibre, or for its labour....
, such as codling moth

Codling moth

The codling moth is a member of the Lepidopteran family Tortricidae. They are known as an agriculture pest, their larva being the common apple worm or maggot....
on apple

APPLE

Boll weevil

Cotton

Bacteria

Vector (biology)

In epidemiology, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but that transmits infection by conveying pathogens from one Host to another, serving as a transmission ....
human disease

Disease

A disease or medical condition is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and Medical signs....
, such as rat

Rat

Rats are various medium sized, long-tailed rodents of the Family Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus....
s and flea

Flea

Flea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects whose mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood....
s which carry the plague

Bubonic plague

Plague is a deadly infectious disease caused by the Enterobacteriaceae Yersinia pestis . Plague is a zoonotic, primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas....
disease, or mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are common flying insects in the family Culicidae that are found around the world. There are about 3,500 species. They have a pair of scaled wings, a pair of halteres, a slender body, and six long legs....
es which vector malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a Vector -borne infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites. It is widespread in Tropics and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa....
.

The term pest may be used to refer specifically to harmful animals but is also often taken to mean all harmful organisms including fungi and viruses. Pesticides are chemicals that are used to control or protect other organisms from pests.

It is possible for an animal to be a pest in one setting but beneficial or domesticated in another (for example, European rabbits introduced to Australia

Rabbits in Australia

File:Oryctolagus cuniculus Tasmania.jpgFile:Wild rabbit in grass.jpgIn Australia, rabbits are the most serious mammalian Pest , an invasive species whose destruction of habitats is responsible for the extinction or major decline of many native animals such as the Western Quoll....
caused ecological

Ecology

Ecology is the science study of the distribution and Abundance of life and the interactions between organisms and their nature environment ....
damage

Invasive species

Invasive species is a phrase with several definitions. The first definition expresses the phrase in terms of non-indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically....
beyond the scale they inflicted in their natural habitat). Many weeds are also seen as useful under certain conditions, for instance Patterson's curse

Patterson's Curse

Echium plantagineum is a species of Echium, native to western and southern Europe , northern Africa, and southwestern Asia .It is an annual plant or biennial plant growing to 20-60 cm tall, with rough, hairy, lanceolate leaf up to 14 cm long....
is often valued as food for honeybees and as a wildflower, even though it can poison livestock.

The concept of a pest is anthropogenic

Anthropogenic

Anthropogenic effects, processes or materials are those that are derived from human activities, as opposed to those occurring in natural environments without human influence....
, based on human purposes and perceptions, although these are arguably the only purposes and perceptions that exist.

Related is pestilence

Pestilence

A pestilence is any virulent and highly infectious disease that can cause an epidemic or even a pandemic. The word can also be used about parasites causing large scale sickness and death, such as Guinea worm....
, which is any highly-infectious (epidemic

Epidemic

In epidemiology, an infection that is epidemic appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected," based on recent experience ....
) disease.

External links

- arthropod
Arthropod

Arthropods are animals belonging to the Scientific classification Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others....
s, nematode
Nematode

The "roundworms" or "nematodes" are the most diverse phylum of body cavity, and one of the most diverse of all animals. Nematode species are very difficult to distinguish; over 80,000 have been described, of which over 15,000 are parasite....
s and plant diseases affecting humans, livestock/pets, agricultural and ornamental plants.

Pest (animal)

See also

External links