2016/07/29 by Niklas L. P. Lundström, Hong Zhang, Lundström, Niklas L. P. +3
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #FOS: Biological sciences #Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #Weed Control and Herbicide Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1608.00603
openalex publication_date 2016/07/29 · openalex created_date 2022/09/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Biological pest control is increasingly used in agriculture as a an\nalternative to traditional chemical pest control. In many cases, this involves\na one-off or periodic release of naturally occurring and/or genetically\nmodified enemies such as predators, parasitoids, or pathogens. As the\ninteraction between these enemies and the pest is complex and the production of\nnatural enemies potentially expensive, it is not surprising that both the\nefficacy and economic viability of biological pest control are debated. Here,\nwe investigate the performance of very simple control strategies. In\nparticular, we show how Pareto-efficient one-off or periodic release\nstrategies, that optimally trade off between efficacy and economic viability,\ncan be devised and used to enable high efficacy at small economic costs. We\ndemonstrate our method on a pest-pathogen-crop model with a tunable immigration\nrate of pests. By analyzing this model, we demonstrate that simple\nPareto-efficient one-off and periodic release strategies are efficacious and\nsimultaneously have profits that are close to the theoretical maximum obtained\nby strategies optimizing only the profit. When the immigration rate of pests is\nlow to intermediate, one-off control strategies are sufficient, and when the\nimmigration of pests is high, periodic release strategies are preferable. The\nmethods presented here can be extended to more complex scenarios and be used to\nidentify promising biological pest control strategies in many circumstances.\n