Intraguild Predation: the case of Harmonia axiridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Episyrphus balteatus (Diptera: Syrphidae) Manuel Ricardo

Garca Arango1, Jackline Kendi Mworia2

M.Sc International Horticulture. Biological Plant Protection ,. Leibniz Hannover University, Hannover, Germany. 1 manuelricardo.garcia @gmail.com, 2 kendjackie@yahoo.com

Since biological control programs aim at the reduction of pest populations under a given density, below the economic injury level, in a stable manner through the use of augmentative or inundative release of natural enemies of the pest(s) in question, the interaction of the organisms in question is of fundamental importance. The concepts of population equilibria and their regulation under simplified models in which some factors are ignored for arguments sake

Theories of Economical Divergence Critiques to the economical convergence models comes from the fact that empirical studies show that economic disparities between developed nations and less developed countries have persisted despite increasing per capita income. The underlying assumptions of such models such as constant returns to scale, zero transportation costs, identical production technologies across regions, perfectly competitive markets, identical preferences across regions, and homogeneous labor and capital inputs may explain the deviation from the reality of many underdeveloped countries (Dawkins, 2003). a) Cumulative Causation Theory Originally proposed by Gunnar Myrdal in 1957, this model states that increasing returns to scale in nations that are the first to attain industrialization, generates a clustering of economic activity within said regions. Underdeveloped regions offer low-wage labor and receive innovations through a spreading effect of technology, so the know-how and labor force might give these regions a chance to catch up with the developed regions when free trade is enforced. However, cumulative causation, which is a back feeding loop in which economic agglomeration around industrialized regions largely offsets the low-wage labor that underdeveloped regions can offer, drives the system to a misbalance that continuously favors developed areas over time (Dawkins, 2003; Panico & Rizza, 2006). Nicholas Kaldor in 1970 expands on the model proposed by Myrdal, introducing ideas from export base theory and the concept of efficiency wage, which refers to the monetary wage divided by a measure of labor productivity, so it means how much money is really needed to produce a given good. Since early industrialized regions take the lead in the international trade market, when an exogenous force increases worldwide demand for a given industrial product, even under assumptions of equal monetary wages in all regions, the efficiency wages are lower in industrialized nations due to scale economies, and this higher output at lower efficiency wages will continue to decrease favoring industrialized regions in the market (Dawkins, 2003; Panico & Rizza, 2006).

b) Polarization Unlike the measure of inequality, polarization focuses on the distribution of members of a society clustering in one or more groups of income level, poles, as an index of economic convergence. These measures help to clarify why economic growth does not necessarily correlate with human development, giving importance to facts missed by other inequality measures and hence providing different policy suggestions compared to those that stem from indices like Gini (Araar, 2008; Vandemoortele, 2009). The Gini coefficient is defined based on the Lorenz curve, which is plots the cumulative share of people of a given population according to income lowest to highest- vs the total income of the population also in a cumulative manner, in the y axis. According to this curve the coefficient tells how high is the equality of incomes, being 0 the most egalitarian situation, so comparing different countries of groups according to this ratio index is fairly straightforward. Problems inherent to this measure include (i) it doesnt account for how much wealth a country has compared to another even if the coefficient is the same, (ii) the efficiency of income use by households, income changes during lifespan of a person, and (iii) in the case of open migration policy towards poor immigrants it would lower the coefficient of the country as a whole making the picture bleaker than it originally might be (Nafziger, 2006). Inequality and polarization are different, measures of the former assume that transfers of capital from wealthy persons to less wealthy ones will reduce inequality following the transfer principle. On the other hand, polarization measures focus on where on the income distribution curve this transfer takes places and hence its impact. This is better explained when a transfer between a higher income individual to a lower income person takes place for example through education subsidies based on progressive taxes. In principle this transfer made one person a bit less rich and the other less poor, seemingly balancing the situation, but this also means that the polarization increased since the proportion of people in the middle class was reduced at the expense of the proportion of people in the other two groups (Araar, 2008; Vandemoortele, 2009). Polarization indices have been proposed by Wolfson in 1994, and by Duclos, Esteban and Ray (DER) in 2004. The Wolfson index measures bipolarization assuming two groups in terms of income, those above the average and those below, it is the first attempt at assessing bipolarization and because of that it is used by the World Bank in their household survey analysis (PovcalNet). A rise in the value of this index means deepening of the gap between the poles and the disappearance of the middle class, so when this happens the policies applied are reduction of the poorer group by building human capacities, for example by eliminating secondary school fees, and supporting income generation by favoring medium enterprises and micro-finance grants (Araar, 2008; Vandemoortele, 2009).

The DER index evaluates polarization without prior assumption of a number of income groups, providing information different from what the prior index represents. When the value of this measure increases, the proportion of people in the middle segment of the income distribution does not change, but rather it means that the income distribution has greater variation showing a

multimodal pattern, so that for example the index shows the polarization between poor, middle and high income groups (Araar, 2008; Vandemoortele, 2009). This DER index accounts for different components, (i) mean alienation as the average distance between two income groups, reflecting the propensity of people to feel estranged from those further away in the income distribution. (ii) mean identification as the density of people around a given income level, resulting in an emergent identity for the people in that particular level as the group expands, this can polarize further the population and with increasing size of a given segments this could add more weight to the aims of this group, possibly bringing negative influence on other the income levels. (iii) correlation component is the relationship between alienation and identification, but since the value of the whole index can be disassembled into its constituents policy makers can clearly see what is the most influencing component (Araar, 2008; Vandemoortele, 2009).

Polarization and Development The explicit relationship between growth and polarization is not so easy to assess, but it does correspond to five areas of influence. Weak social cohesion, since polarization reflects social cohesion in terms of alienation because of the members of an income level to feel part of a group. Polarization can lead to an increase in social conflict, yet economic and non-economic variables can cause deviation from this expected result, for example when income levels should cause polarization but social cohesion is observed, and vice versa. These factors that cause deviation are ethnicity and religious inclination, which act either as a cementing or polarizing factor. In the broadest sense weak social cohesion, social tension and conflict affects human development and diminishes economic growth (Vandemoortele, 2009) Political and fiscal instability, in polarized economic societies politicians who disagree on the composition of government funds there is a higher risk that they will overexploit the common resources pool affecting society as a whole. As an additional or alternative situation, the association of polarization and political instability shortens the time schedules of policy makers, which are devised and enforced to maintain the economic stability in the short term, hence affecting long run economic growth by discouraging foreign and local entrepreneurship (Vandemoortele, 2009) Distribution of social spending, this may arise when socio-ethnic and political differences favor investment in certain areas compared to others, like in human development. This might also arise because of internal differences in income distribution that are geographically clustered so it is in short term better to spend in more productive regions at the expense of deepening the gap with underdeveloped ones. Elite domination and middle group disappearance, this is particularly important since the middle class consists of stakeholders, entrepreneurs, skilled workers and consumers, a segment of the population that accumulates an important proportion of human and infrastructure capital. But when a society is polarized spending in human development is less likely causing slow economic growth and a widening of the gap between the poles. Insecure property and legal rights, for the general public when a population is polarized, because the elite can ensure that their rights are preserved influencing in turn the choices of the production

processes which are efficient and therefore worth investing in, penalizing investment in other areas that might lead to development in the mid or long term (Vandemoortele, 2009)

REFERENCES ARAAR, A. 2008. On the Decomposition of Polarization Indices: Illustrations with Chinese and Nigerian Household Surveys. CIRPEE Working Paper No. 08-06. 1-26p household surveys DAWKINS, C. J. 2003. Regional Development Theory: Conceptual Foundations, Classic Works, and Recent Developments. Journal of Planning Literature,Vol. 18, No.2: 131-172p NAFZIGER, E. W. 2006. Economic Development. 4th Ed, Cambridge University Press. New York. USA. 871p PANICO, C. & RIZZA, M. O. 2008. Myrdal, Growth Processes and Equilibrium Theorie. In Salvadori, N.; Commendatore, P.; Tamberi, M. (eds). Geography, Structural Change and Economic Development: Theory and Empirics. Elgar, Aldershot, 183-202p. REY, S. J. & JANIKAS, M. V. 2005. Regional Convergence, Inequality, and Space. Journal of Economic Geography Vol. 5., No. 2: 155-176p VANDEMOORTELE, M. 2009. Growth Without Development: Looking beyond Inequality. Briefing Paper No. 47. Overseas Development Institute. Westminster Bridge Road, London. UK. 4p.