Reproductive biology of invertebrates. Volumes I and II: Edited by K. G. Adiyodi and R. G. Adiyodi,Wiley, New York, 1983. 770 pp. and 692 pp. $110.00 and $94.00

Biological control agents (biorationals) are increasingly important in pest control concepts. Certain insect viruses, particularly the baculoviruses (nuclear polyhedrosis viruses), are considered to have potential as biological pesticides and could be used widely in the environment. Therefore, test animals must be selected and methods and laboratory systemsdeveloped to evaluate the safety of these agents to nontarget species. A simple laboratory system has been designed and used to determine risks of infectivity and pathogenicity of an insect Baculovirus, originally isolated from the Alfalfa looper, Autographa californica, to a nontarget arthropod, the grass shrimp, Palaemonetes vulgaris, by dietary exposure. This laboratory method also permits evaluation of other microbial biorationals against nontarget aquatic species, and provides an inexpensive standardized procedure of safety testing. Results from this study indicated that histopathological, ultrastructural, and serological methods used provided no evidence that experimental exposure to the virus in our test system caused viral infection or related pathogenicity in the grass shrimp.