Agronomy and Horticulture, Department of

 

Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary

Resistance Genetics: Evolution of Resistance to Pesticides in Populations

Document Type

Learning Object

Date of this Version

11-2025

Citation

Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary (PASSeL) Lessons

Comments

The materials for these modules were developed with support from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture National Needs Fellowship Program, Award No. 2016-38420-25297. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Abstract

Overview

Overuse and reliance on pesticides to control agricultural pests has caused pest populations to evolve due to the application of artificial selection. Individuals with a higher tolerance for pesticides survive to reproduce – increasing resistant individuals that will eventually outnumber the ones that are controllable.

Resistance Genetics is a set of 4 lessons that teach about the genetic basis of pesticide resistance. These lessons can be used together or as separate lessons.

  1. Trait Expression
  2. Genotypic Inheritance and Connection to Phenotype
  3. Origin of Resistant Alleles - the lesson you are reading now
  4. Selecting Genes for Resistance - Evolution of Resistance to Pesticides in Populations

This is the Evolution of Resistance to Pesticides in Populations lesson.

The first Resistance Genetics lesson on Trait Expression described how genes are expressed by providing the cell protein coding instructions. This Resistance Genetics lesson on Genotype and Phenotype focused on the inheritance of genes and explained the occurrence of phenotype variation in families.

This lesson on the origin of resistant alleles describes how and where pesticide resistance in a population begins.

This lesson on the evolution of genetic change in populations emphasized the evolution of pesticide resistance in pest population.

This lesson describes the evolution of genetic change in populations. The lesson will emphasize the evolution of pesticide resistance in pest population.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, each student should be able to:

  • Define short term evolution.
  • Identify when genetic and environmental influences on phenotype will lead to population evolution.
  • List environmental factors that vary in a growing environment and can influence an organism’s phenotype.
  • Describe how the gene pool of a population can change from the forces of selection pressure and migration.
  • Predict the rate of change in a gene pool from different levels of selection pressure or in different migration situations.
  • Match a mating system that would be occurring with respect to a specific trait with either population gene pool and genotype data or with information about the distribution or reproduction of the species.
  • Propose how mating system can influence the rate of population evolution for particular traits.

Modules

Modules

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