Contact Name

Laura Sobieck

Contact Phone

5738826376

Contact Email

sobieckl@umsystem.edu

Speaker(s) Information

Dr. Dan Pagendam

CSIRO Data61 Australia

 

Additional Event Information

Title: Estimating Mosquito Abundance and Population Suppression in a Biocontrol Program

 

ABSTRACT: The sterile insect technique is a simple approach for controlling populations of pest insects at large spatial scales.  It involves rearing large numbers of insects, sterilising them and releasing them into wild populations to decrease the overall birth rate.  This seminar will focus on data collected during a mosquito sterile insect program that was carried out in Innisfail, Australia over the summer of 2017/18.  The program saw the release of approximately 3 million sterile male mosquitoes into three neighbourhoods, with another three neighbourhoods left untreated as experimental controls.  We show how a Bayesian state-space model for mosquito population dynamics and trapping was used to extract valuable insights into mosquito abundance and population suppression.  The success of the modelling relies on: (i) the numbers of sterile males being known at each release; and (ii) releases resulting in detectable increases in trapping rates post release.   Our relatively simple model, implemented in the Stan modelling language, provides useful outputs that can be used for running expensive biocontrol projects more efficiently which is critical to their use at large spatial scales.