Biocontrol News and Information
CABI Publishing


September 1997, Volume 18 No. 3

Internet Round-Up

By: Peter McEwen, Insect Investigations Ltd, School of Pure & Applied Biology, University of Wales, Cardiff, P.O. Box 915, Cardiff CF1 3TL, UK

E-mail: McEwen@cf.ac.uk

This month's Round-up reviews pest management focal points on the Internet. There is so much information on pest management available that the Internet user needs some help in finding their way around. Search engines do help to some extent but you would still need a lot of time to visit all the possible sites thrown up by, for example, altavista (altavista.digital.com). Do not despair! There are a number of pest management centres, around which much other information is coalescing. Some of the most interesting are described below:

Pestweb - ../../index.htm

Pestweb is an interesting website and judging by the number of company logos (Zeneca, DowElanco, AgrEvo, etc.) has also been very successful at attracting sponsorship. The screen is split into two columns. On the left-hand side the user is presented with a variety of links ranging from products and services to classified advertisements, `fun stuff', pests and suppliers, and with the option to link in your own site. The right-hand side of the screen has links to sponsors' sites and advertisements, and links at the bottom of the page to the resources already listed on the left-hand side of the screen. As an example of what you can do with this site follow the link to PESTS from the left-hand side of the screen to see a number of interesting options including mosquitoes, slugs and skunks. These links lead to a list of URLs relevant to these subject areas. Pestweb does appear to be heavily USA orientated. There is for example a useful resource called PCO finder which can be searched to find pest control companies all around the United States (including a clickable map of the USA). This is a great idea and will hopefully be extended to the rest of the world one day.

Database of IPM Resources (DIR) - http://ipmwww.ncsu.edu/cicp/DIR/

This is a collaborative effort by the Consortium for International Crop Protection (CICP), the New York Agricultural Experiment Station (Geneva, New York), the Integrated Plant Protection Center (IPPC), Oregon State University (Corvallis, Oregon, USA) National IPM Network (NIPMN), and North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). On entry to DIR the user is given the option to press a number of buttons - Main Index, Search Engine, Website Gateway, Select a Crop, and What's New? The Main Index button leads to a number of choices including a useful list of IPM definitions, and links to other URLs classified by various categories including crop, control tactic, pest and region. The Search Engine allows you to search the site by key word. The Website Gateway, Select a Crop and What's New buttons are, I think, self explanatory.

The Plant Pathology Internet Guide-book (PPIGB) - http://www.ifgb.uni-hannover.de/extern/ppigb/ppigb.htm

The Plant Pathology Internet Guide-book is hosted by the Institute for Plant Diseases and Plant Protection, Depart-ment of Horticulture, University of Hannover (Germany). The PPIGB is basically a logically organized database of links to a huge number of other pest management URLs. The screen is split into 2 columns with an index on the left-hand side covering a range of different topics from bacteriology and entomology, to pesticides, turfgrass, biotechnology and jobs. Click on one of these categories and a list of appropriate URLs appears on the right-hand side of the screen. Each one of these links has been researched by the site manager and a description of the site is included. The site is characterized by frequent updates and a `New Entries' section of recently added URLs. This site is pleasing to look at and users can update or send in their own URLs.

The Pest Management Resource Centre (PMRC) - http://www.pestmanagement.co.uk

This site is a joint venture between Insect Investigations Ltd., The Welsh Pest Management Forum, and Chap-man & Hall Scientific Publishers. Most of the resources are free to the user and include logically organized links to other sites, pest management courses and jobs, an international conference calendar, a pest control products catalogue, an international pest management directory, a glossary of pest management terms, pest management publications, a pest management quote shop, a World pest database, a listing of pest manage-ment acronyms (`Acronym Access'), and specialist resources such as ecotoxicology and microbial pest-icides and biopesticides. It would be inappropriate for me, as site manager, to attempt a review of this site but your comments are always welcome. Please feel free to contact me at the above address.

PEST CABWeb®® - index.htm

PEST CABWeb® has at its core six of CABI's key pest management journals, including Biocontrol News & Information, Bulletin of Entomological Research and Review of Plant Pathology. Access to these journals is strictly by registration only, although access is free of charge to anyone in one of CABI's subscriber institutions. In addition to the journals, which are updated at the same frequency as their printed equivalents, PEST CABWeb® includes features such as a `Pest of the Month', some useful links to other Internet resources, a calendar of events and information about the pest manage-ment training, identification and research services available from CABI. Registration forms can be down-loaded from the site itself, or can be obtained from CABI's headquarters in Wallingford, UK. Comments are welcome, and can be sent to the Webmaster at support@cabi.org

Finally

As always in these things this column is only a guide to let you know what is going on on the Internet. It is up to you to visit these sites, to decide which ones you find most useful, and to interact with the site managers to improve the services offered. The list of sites outlined above will not be comprehensive, this is just a sample. If I have missed off your particular pest management centre then I do apologise. Send me your URL and I will refer to your site in a future Round-up.