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SUMMARY:Modelling the biological control of crop disease - Robin Thompson
DTSTART:20120511T120000Z
DTEND:20120511T123000Z
UID:TALK36369@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Suzy Stoodley
DESCRIPTION:Global food security concerns are likely to remain prominent a
 s population growth and climate change increase pressures on food producti
 on. With commonly-used techniques for controlling crop diseases\, such as 
 fungicides and crop rotation\, subject to ecological\, economic and enviro
 nmental disadvantages\, experimentalists have become increasingly interest
 ed in biological control\, where a natural enemy of a pathogen is deployed
  to reduce disease. We initially consider the probability of invasion in t
 he stochastic SIS epidemiological model\, focussing on the case where the 
 population size is relatively small. We demonstrate analytically how the p
 robability of an epidemic occurring depends sensitively on the exact defin
 ition used to define an epidemic\, and how the response is affected by bot
 h the population size and the basic reproductive number of the pathogen. O
 ur analysis is then extended to deterministic and stochastic adaptations o
 f the SIS model where an agent of biological control is incorporated. In p
 articular\, we determine conditions for biological control to be able to e
 radicate a particular pathogen\, and how eradication is conditioned on the
  epidemiology of the underlying host-pathogen interaction as well as the l
 evel and timing of application. Our results have clear significance in ter
 ms of optimising the deployment of biological control and explaining the v
 ariability that has all too often beset performance in the field.
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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