Where does resurgence collide?

In pest management, resurgence is the rapid rebound of a pest population to numbers as high as or higher than before, triggered by the very insecticide meant to control it, typically because the spray also killed the predators and parasitoids that had been holding the pest in check. It is a classic unintended consequence of broad-spectrum chemical control and a central argument for integrated pest management. Hardin and colleagues' 1995 Arthropod pest resurgence: an overview of potential mechanisms reviews the pathways that produce it. The referent is a population dynamic defined against a control intervention, unrelated to a karst spring or to a reappearing learned behavior.[1]

Unit

The post-treatment rise of a pest population above its pre-treatment level

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Quantified by pest density tracked before and after treatment relative to untreated controls, often alongside natural-enemy counts

In the experimental analysis of behavior, resurgence is the reappearance of a previously reinforced, then extinguished, response when a more recently reinforced response is itself put on extinction, so an old behavior returns once the newer alternative stops being rewarded. It is studied as a window on how extinguished behavior is retained rather than erased, and it bears on relapse after treatments that replace a problem behavior with an alternative. Lieving and Lattal's 2003 Recency, repeatability, and reinforcer retrenchment: An experimental analysis of resurgence is a core experimental treatment. The referent is a relapse phenomenon in operant conditioning, sharing only its name with the hydrological and entomological meanings.[2]

Unit

The return of an extinguished response when a later-reinforced response is extinguished

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Measured by the rate of the target response during the test phase relative to its extinguished baseline