Mathematical Modelling of Biological Control Interaction to Support Agriculture and Conservation

research group

[RG # 170] Mathematical Modelling of Biological Control Interaction to Support Agriculture and Conservation

February 1, 2022 – June 30, 2022

Organizers:

Tamar Keasar (University of Haifa)
Eric Wajnberg (INRA)

Global crop losses due to arthropods amount to 18-26% of the annual production. Efficient and sustainable pest control strategies are needed to reduce these losses. Many tools for controlling insect pests are available. Among them, biological control by insect natural enemies (predators and parasitoids) has recently gained renewed interest because of environmental concerns and problems encountered with the use of pesticides. Biological control has a long history of use in pest management and has been outstandingly successful in many instances. Nevertheless, such successes remain limited in number and failures are often under-reported. Moreover, biological control programs are still widely practiced as trial-and-error enterprises, rather than being guided by theory-driven principles.

The deficiency in theory-based biological control practices is not only due to insufficient basic information. A wealth of knowledge exists on the behavioral mechanisms employed by insect natural enemies to find and exploit their hosts/prey, as well as on their population dynamics and evolutionary adaptations to their environments. Moreover, a variety of modeling approaches are available to describe these processes and to predict their long-term population-level effects. These include tools such as static and dynamic optimization, game theory, stochastic dynamic modeling, matrix models and genetic algorithms. However, theoretical and empirical knowledge are often being advanced independently, limiting the interplay between the two fields and hence the connection between theory and practice.

Our study group will span the continuum between theoretical approaches (behavioral, population and community ecology) and application (biological control). Our main aim will be to bridge the existing gaps between the well-developed theory of interactions between insects and their natural enemies, and the optimization of the efficacy of biological control projects in agriculture and conservation. This interdisciplinary group will comprise mathematical biologists and experimentalists interested in close collaborations. 

Photo credit: Hans Smid (www.bugsinspace.nl)

 

 

Members

fellow

Moshe Coll

FELLOW
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

 

 

 

fellow

Ian Hardy

FELLOW
University of Helsinki
Ian Hardy is the Professor of Agricultural Entomology in the Department of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Helsinki. His research interests are population biology, agri-ecology, and evolutionary ecology.
fellow

George Heimpel

FELLOW
University of Minnesota
George Heimpel is a professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota. His research interests are entomology, ecology, conservation biology, parasitoid biology, and biological control.
fellow

Tamar Keasar

FELLOW
University of Haifa
Tamar Keasar is an associate professor in the Department of Biology and the Environment at the University of Haifa. Her research interests are insect ecology, pollination biology, and parasitoid-host interactions.
fellow

Asaf Sadeh

FELLOW
Newe Ya'ar Research Center, ARO
Asaf Sadeh is a senior researcher in the Department of Natural Resources at Newe Ya'ar Research Center. His research interests are agroecology, predator-prey interactions, and disease ecology.
fellow

Michal Segoli

FELLOW
Ben-Gurion University
Michal Segoli is a senior lecturer in the Department of Desert Ecology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research interests are: insect behavioral and evolutionary ecology; and conservation biological control.
fellow

Saskya van Nouhuys

FELLOW
Cornell University
Saskya van Nouhuys is an adjunct associate professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Cornell University. Her research interests are: population and community ecology; and insect behaviour.
fellow

Eric Wajnberg

FELLOW
INRA
Eric Wajnberg is the Head of Research at SPE, INRAE. His research interests are: insect ecology, statistics, and modeling.

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