David W. Onstad

In late June of 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the courts (meaning judges) must be the interpreters when laws passed by Congress are converted to regulations. For the past 40 years, legal precedent has held that federal courts should generally defer to reasonable interpretations by agency experts when laws are ambiguous (known as “Chevron deference” from the 1984 deciding case). The new ruling gives judges the authority to potentially override or disregard the input of agency subject–matter experts and exert their own decisions without room for objection.

The current obsession with the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has a strong and in most ways deleterious influence on both individual scientists and scientific societies ( Schloss and Cuomo 2023). In a previous editorial, Onstad (2024) showed that JIF is of little value and can be misleading, in assessing the value of entomological publications. He concluded that “The JIF was not created to be used in the scientific reward system, but rather a construct of publishers to compete. It does not represent a quantitative measure of the relative value of an author or a paper to society or science. Entomologists must not be influenced by JIF when they submit an article, read an article or judge one.” In the following discussion, we highlight the consequences for the entomological community of the current obsession with JIF and citations. We argue that this obsession has a disproportionately negative effect on women, small cohorts of scientists working in highly circumscribed fields, and non-profit scientific societies. We end with a plea for entomologists to help counteract this trend.

In the 21st century, citations and the related journal impact factor (JIF) have become like cryptocurrency. Entomologists and their supervisors use these calculated numbers as an easy quantifier for scientific contributions versus the more traditional methods such as number of published, peer-reviewed articles, or even qualitative estimates of value in research. In a future editorial, I will address some major ethical and sociological issues concerning reliance on citations and the JIF. Here I simply provide 3 examples that question the value of relying on the JIF as a measure of scientific worth.

Science is not performed alone. An activity can be performed alone, but methods and results must be evaluated by others and shared. Furthermore, groups of scientists band together and form a discipline because of the social value to the scientists. Entomologists share jargon, ways of communicating, fundraising, and expectations about what is good and valuable. Those in entomology realize that participating in the discipline brings philosophical and administrative support, funding, and recognition. However, managing the communication channels and evaluation processes that are fundamental to any science is neither simple nor free of conflict. This journal is part of the Entomological Society of America’s effort to serve all of its members and be involved in entomology globally. The Annals of the ESA will help maximize knowledge sharing. These goals are more fully described in the Society’s recently adopted strategic plan. The newly adopted Vision and Mission statements for the Annals of the ESA are shown below. What is taken as a given, and therefore not stated, is that the editors will maintain the high standards that we have used to evaluate manuscripts. What is clear from the statements is our belief that science is more than research and that the health of the discipline depends on more than exploring the truth about nature. The Annals of the ESA will continue its long history of publishing important papers about research across the spectrum from alpha taxonomy to genomics or from basic ecology to IPM. However, we also believe that we must serve entomologists who are on the frontlines engaging with society including with administrators, politicians, farmers, regulators, and children. Entomologists will only have a valuable discipline if society, legislators, funding agencies, and educational institutions believe that we are useful as a group.

In this review, we evaluate the intentional mixing or blending of insecticidal seed with refuge seed for managing resistance by insects to insecticidal corn (Zea mays). We first describe the pest biology and farming practices that will contribute to weighing trade-offs between using block refuges and blended refuges. Case studies are presented to demonstrate how the trade-offs will differ in different systems. We compare biological aspects of several abstract models to guide the reader through the history of modeling, which has played a key role in the promotion or denigration of blending in various scientific debates about insect resistance management for insecticidal crops. We conclude that the use of blended refuge should be considered on a case-by-case basis after evaluation of insect biology, environment, and farmer behavior. For Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, Ostrinia nubilalis, and Helicoverpa zea in the United States, blended refuge provides similar, if not longer, delays in the evolution of resistance compared to separate block refuges.

The tools of insect pest management include host plant resistance, biological control, and insecticides and how they are integrated will influence th

We created a detailed model of the Maruca vitrata (F.) and cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp] system to study the possible evolution of resistance

Western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte, has overcome crop rotation in several areas of the central United States. We expanded a simple model of adult behavior and population genetics to explain how rotation resistance may have developed and to study ways to manage the western corn rootworm in a landscape of corn, soybean, and winter wheat where evolution of resistance may occur. We modeled six alternative management strategies over a 15-yr time horizon, as well as a strategy involving a 2-yr rotation of corn and soybean in 85% of the landscape, to investigate their effectiveness from both a biological and economic perspective. Generally, resistance to crop rotation evolves in fewer than 15 yr, and the rate of evolution increases as the level of rotated landscape (selection pressure) increases. When resistance is recessive, all six alternative strategies were effective at preventing evolution of rotation resistance. The two most successful strategies were the use of transgenic rotated corn in a 2-yr rotation and a 3-yr rotation of corn, soybean, and wheat with unattractive wheat (for oviposition) preceding corn. Results were most sensitive to increases in the initial allele frequency and modifications of the density-dependent survival function. Economically, three alternative strategies were robust solutions to the problem, if technology fees were not too high. Repellant soybean, attractive rotated corn, and transgenic rotated corn, all in 2-yr rotations, were economically valuable approaches. However, even the currently common 2-yr rotation was economical when resistance was recessive and the actual costs of resistance would not be paid until far in the future.