Pest

Pest

A pest is any animal or plant detrimental to humans or human concerns, including crops, livestock, and forestry. The term is also used of organisms that cause a nuisance, such as in the home. An older usage is of a deadly epidemic disease, specifically plague. In its broadest sense, a pest is a competitor of humanity.

Definition

A pest is any living organism, whether animal, plant or fungus, which is invasive or prolific, detrimental, troublesome, noxious, destructive, a nuisance to either plants or animals, human or human concerns, livestock, or human structures. It is a loose concept, as an organism can be a pest in one setting but beneficial, domesticated or acceptable in another.

Animals

Many animals are considered pests by humans. Animals can be a nuisance when they cause damage to agriculture, to buildings, to gardens, or to forestry. An animal could also be a pest when it causes damage to a wild ecosystem or carries germs within human habitats. Examples of these include those organisms which vector human disease, such as rats and fleas which carry the plague disease, mosquitoes which vector malaria, and ticks which carry Lyme Disease.

Plants

Certain plants can also be pests. Plants can cause damage to agriculture, to buildings, or to wild ecosystems. Invasive plants can displace native plants and create habitats which are not as suitable for wildlife. Notable examples of pest plants include the emerald ash borer and the kudzu vine.

Control

Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, and can be perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy. A practitioner of pest control is called an exterminator.

See also

• Pest (organism)
• Pest control
• Invasive species
• List of common household pests
• Biological pest control
• Pesticide
• Integrated pest management

References

Pest Resources
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