Letter from the Editors

Resistant Pest Management and the Electronic Era

We are proud to introduce the electronic version of the Resistance Pest Management Newsletter (RPM News). This is the 10th year of publication and our 1st electronic version. We certainly invite any suggestions or constructive alternatives to our new format.

As you can see the newsletter is supported by the Center for Integrated Plant Systems at Michigan State University, the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC), and the US Department of Agriculture. We are grateful for their support and the resources that make the Newsletter and Resistant Arthropod Database (http://www.cips.msu.edu/resistance/rmdb) possible.

Our electronic format allows us greater facility to serve you through rapid publication of breaking events in resistance development and management. Our hope is that there will be decreased time between volumes and increased access which will lead to a more informative and complete reporting process for resistance pest management globally. In addition, we are intending to publish updated lists and other relevant information from the Resistant Arthropod Database in the RPM News. We trust that you will find many of the articles, abstracts, and other information in this issue useful and informative.

In the future, we may be able to publish the RPM News more frequently, and our goal is to increase our volumes to three or four Newsletters this year. Ultimately this goal depends on two key issues: 1) your submission of resistance information to the RPM Newsletter and Database and 2) our continued support base.

Together with the posting of this web-based newsletter we will be sending over 2500 postcards out to our mailing list. These postcards will inform our historical subscribers of the change in our publication format and the location on the web where they can successfully access the RPM News. In addition, we are systematically placing all of the twenty-two previous volumes of the newsletter on the new site.

The editorial and support staff of RPM News is excited about our new web venue and hope that it will serve your resistance information needs effectively.