The role of biological collections in integrated pest management.

<p>The process of diagnosing an agricultural pest and then finding, testing, mass-producing, and releasing a control agent takes place in different settings and institutions. For the process to succeed, each participant in the process must be using the same host plants, pest species, and control agent species. Morphological and genetic comparisons with reference collections and databases can reveal the inadvertent introduction of look-alike or cryptic species into the process.