Modelling Drosophila suzukii Adult Male Populations: A Physiologically Based Approach with Validation
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie e Forestali (DAFNE), Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Insects 2020, 11(11), 751; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11110751
Received: 14 October 2020
/
Revised: 29 October 2020
/
Accepted: 30 October 2020
/
Published: 31 October 2020
(This article belongs to the Collection Biocontrol and Behavioral Approaches to Manage Invasive Insects)
Simple Summary
Drosophila suzukii is an injurious insect pest infesting soft fruit cultivations worldwide. In the recent years, it has spread in new territories, favored by its capability of adapting in new environments. Because of the severe reduction of the yields in cultivated fields, mainly due to the feeding and ovipositional activities, several studies were conducted on the side of the control strategies. However, the cost of the active ingredients, and the safeguard of the environmental and human health led scientists to introduce new tools for decision making. Among the latter, mathematical models play an important role, since their capability to summarize a pool of biological information such that the relations between the species and the external environment. The development and validation of mathematical models which faithfully describe the life cycle of ectotherms, as insects are, provide reliable tools to use in an integrated pest management framework. This work extends the application of a physiologically based model in the case study of D. suzukii, providing a validation in the case of an insect pest relevant in agriculture, and an accurate estimation of a set of biological parameters.
The Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), is a harmful insect pest for soft fruit cultivations. Even though its main hosts belong to the genera Prunus and Rubus, its high polyphagy and adaptability to new environments makes it a serious problem for farmers worldwide, who have reported several economic losses because of this pest. A wide series of proposals to control SWD are available and operate in line with the mechanisms of integrated pest management, demonstrating their high efficiency when applied at the opportune moment. This work aims to apply and validate a physiologically based model which summarises all the available information about D. suzukii biology, such as the relationship between environmental temperature and its development, fertility and mortality rates. The model provided, as a result, a description of a population of SWD females taking into consideration the multiple generations that occurred during the year. Simulations were then compared with field data collected in a three-year survey in two experimental fields located in the Sabina Romana area (Lazio, Italy). More specifically, D. suzukii males were monitored with traps in fields cultivated with mixed varieties of cherries and they were selected because of their clearer identification in comparison to females. Results showed a high level of reliability of simulations in representing the field data, highlighting at the same time that there is no discrepancy in simulating D. suzukii females in order to represent male populations.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
growth models; crop protection; integrated pest management; age-structured models; generalized Von Foerster’s equation; decision support systems
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Rossini, L.; Contarini, M.; Giarruzzo, F.; Assennato, M.; Speranza, S. Modelling Drosophila suzukii Adult Male Populations: A Physiologically Based Approach with Validation. Insects 2020, 11, 751. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11110751
AMA Style
Rossini L, Contarini M, Giarruzzo F, Assennato M, Speranza S. Modelling Drosophila suzukii Adult Male Populations: A Physiologically Based Approach with Validation. Insects. 2020; 11(11):751. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11110751
Chicago/Turabian StyleRossini, Luca, Mario Contarini, Federica Giarruzzo, Matteo Assennato, and Stefano Speranza. 2020. "Modelling Drosophila suzukii Adult Male Populations: A Physiologically Based Approach with Validation" Insects 11, no. 11: 751. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11110751
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
