Kovács I. Endre szerk.: Rovartani Közlemények (Folia Entomologica Hungarica 16/22-30. Budapest, 1963)

sect peat forecasts, - involving important tasks for the research workers of animal communities. Mass production agriculture assigns some interesting and important new tasks also to the soil "biologists. There is no need for a lengthy discussion on the extraordinarily complexity and sensitivity of the biocoenoses, the animal and plant communities of the soil.Modern agriculture submits the soil, as regards culture, dunging, fertilizing, chemical warfare and plant protection, to several new and some very drastic processes. A world-wide study investigates now the effects of these influences on the life of the soil. With relation to Hungary, these researches might be vital in the future, since a part of the home agricultural soils have, aa is well known, a very thin, biologically act

ive,upper layer. Problems in thia connection will successfully be solved again by relying on biocoenological investigationa

. I have to mention finally a task which, though not directly impinging on Hungarian entomology, concerns some Hungarian entomologists: the problem of the tropical-subtropical soils. There is more and more talk in the plantations of tropical or subtropical countries that yields show an alarming downward trend. Preliminary investigations indicate that the decrease is partly due to the degradation of the soils. In the wake of extensive and sometimes exploitative culture methods, the biological equilibrium will often tip over in the soil or in the entire plantation; fungus pests and then insect pests appear, and the soil gets infected to a rate that it will become utterly unsuitable for production for a long time. There is an incipient danger here which, if no immediate steps be taken, shall threaten the very being of millions of peoples inhabiting the aubtropic and tropic regions. It ia an unfortunate fact that those concerned think, due to their shortsighted and grossly practical outlook, of