Multiscale approach to pest insect monitoring: random walks, pattern formation, synchronization, and networks

Sergei Petrovskii, Natalia Petrovskaya, Daniel Bearup

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Citations (Scopus)
241 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Pest insects pose a significant threat to food production worldwide resulting in annual losses worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Pest control attempts to prevent pest outbreaks that could otherwise destroy a sward. It is good practice in integrated pest management to recommend control actions (usually pesticides application) only when the pest density exceeds a certain threshold. Accurate estimation of pest population density in ecosystems, especially in agro-ecosystems, is therefore very important, and this is the overall goal of the pest insect monitoring. However, this is a complex and challenging task; providing accurate information about pest abundance is hardly possible without taking into account the complexity of ecosystems' dynamics, in particular, the existence of multiple scales. In the case of pest insects, monitoring has three different spatial scales, each of them having their own scale-specific goal and their own approaches to data collection and interpretation. In this paper, we review recent progress in mathematical models and methods applied at each of these scales and show how it helps to improve the accuracy and robustness of pest population density estimation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)467-525
JournalPhysics of Life Reviews
Volume11
Issue number3
Early online date15 Feb 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2014

Keywords

  • Insect monitoring
  • Trapping
  • Diffusion
  • Levy walk
  • Numerical integration
  • dispersal

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