Epidemiology and Population Dynamics: Modelisation, Monitoring and Management

Abstract

Understanding how populations of microbial pathogens and arthropod pests develop over time is critical for timely and effective intervention to control disease epidemics and pest infestations in agricultural production systems. Various elements including the pathogen or pest, host plant, natural enemies or competitors, environment, and human activity interact in complex ways, and some of these elements can be factored into mathematical models for pest population increase and disease progress. Greenhouse production affords a level of control over climate and growth environment, as well as the opportunity to release biological control agents, and thus the potential to influence pathogen and arthropod pest populations and their development to a much greater degree than in field production. To this end, thresholds for intervention must be derived based on the relationship between losses and yields weighed against the cost of intervention. In the context of integrated pest management, monitoring of pathogen and pest populations, as well as of the environment and the development of resistance to chemical pesticides such as fungicides and insecticides, is necessary to estimate the risk to the crop posed by these diseases and pests and to select the optimal method for their control.