Reference no: EM132392229

SCIE5500 Modelling Natural Systems

Mini-Project

This project is about designing optimal surveillance strategies for detecting incursions of fruit flies. Fruit flies are a serious biosecurity threat to Australia (and other countries). In areas where fruit fly species are established, they cause huge damages to crop yields and cost a lot of time and money to manage and control.

Many areas are still free of many fruit fly species, and we want to keep it that way! For example, Perth is currently free of the very damaging Queensland fruit fly, and Kununurra in the north of WA is still free of the Mediterranean fruit fly that has spread through many areas of the south of WA.

State governments have surveillance programs that aim to detect new incursions of fruit fly species as quickly as possible, so that they can then be eradicated before populations build up too far and become fully established. These surveillance programs involve placing fruit fly traps in specific locations. These traps use lures that attract fruit flies into the trap from some distance, and these traps are then checked for fruit flies at regular intervals.

Completing the directions above may be enough, but for top marks, you should also explore how the efficacies of your surveillance designs depend on characteristics of the flies and/or the traps. For example, you could consider one or two of the following questions.

1. How do the efficacies of your surveillance designs depend on the trap lure strength? What if the lure distance was 10m instead of 20m? What if it was 30m instead of 10m? Does it change which strategy is the best?

2. If the standard grid design with 100 traps is the one being used currently, can we save money by achieving the same detection efficacy with fewer traps, by using a smarter design? What is the minimum number of traps required to match the efficacy of the current standard grid design with 100 traps?

3. How do the efficacies of your surveillance designs depend on the biological characteristics of the fruit fly? What if the flies:

a. laid fewer or more eggs each day?

b. spent shorter or longer if each life stage?

c. dispersed further , or not so far?

Does it change which strategy is the best?

4. How do the efficacies of your surveillance designs depend on the size of the fruit trees ie the number of fruits they hold? Does it change which strategy is the best?

5. How do the efficacies of your surveillance designs depend on the number of the fruit trees? Someone might propose removing every second fruit tree in the town, because it would help detect new fruit fly incursions more quickly. Would the model agree? Does it change which strategy is the best?

Attachment:- Assignment Details.rar