Refuge Strategies for Managing Pest Resistance in Transgenic Agriculture

When the application of pesticides placesselective evolutionary pressure on pestpopulations it can be useful to plant refugeareas: crop areas intended to encourage thebreeding of pests susceptible to the pesticide. Renewed interest in refuge areas has arisenwith recent advances in biotechnology andgenetically modified (GM) crops. This paperuses a simple model of evolution of pestpopulation and pest resistance to characterizethe socially optimal refuge strategy to managepest resistance. We show both that theestablishment of refuge areas might best bedelayed until resistance becomes an importantconcern, and that the use of refuge areas inthe long-run use will not be optimal if thefitness cost of resistance does not exceed thediscount rate.