NDA@SZTAKI

A two-agent model applied to the biological control of the sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis) by the egg parasitoid Trichogramma galloi and the larvae parasitoid Cotesia flavipes

Molnár, Sándor

LĂłpez, Inmaculada

Gámez, Manuel

Garay, JĂłzsef

Elseiver

2016

QL750-QL782.5 Animal behavior / etológia, állat-viselkedéstan

The paper is aimed at a methodological development in biological pest control. The considered one pest
two-agent system is modelled as a verticum-type system. Originally, linear verticum-type systems were
introduced by one of the authors for modelling certain industrial systems. These systems are hierarchically
composed of linear subsystems such that a part of the state variables of each subsystem affect the
dynamics ofthe next subsystem. Recently, verticum-type system models have been applied to population
ecology as well, which required the extension of the concept a verticum-type system to the nonlinear
case.
In the present paper the general concepts and technics of nonlinear verticum-type control systems are
used to obtain biological control strategies in a two-agent system. For the illustration of this verticumtype
control, these tools of mathematical systems theory are applied to a dynamic model of interactions
between the egg and larvae populations of the sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis) and its parasitoids:
the egg parasitoid Trichogramma galloi and the larvae parasitoid Cotesia flavipes.
In this application a key role is played by the concept of controllability, which means that it is possible
to steer the system to an equilibrium in given time. In addition to a usual linearization, the basic idea is
a decomposition of the control of the whole system into the control of the subsystems, making use of
the verticum structure of the population system. The main aim of this study is to show several advantages
of the verticum (or decomposition) approach over the classical control theoretical model (without
decomposition). For example, in the case of verticum control the pest larval density decreases below the
critical threshold value much quicker than without decomposition. Furthermore, it is also shown that
the verticum approach may be better even in terms of cost effectiveness. The presented optimal control
methodology also turned out to be an efficient tool for the “in silico” analysis of the cost-effectiveness of
different biocontrol strategies, e.g. by answering the question how far it is cost-effective to speed up the
reduction of the pest larvae density, or along which trajectory this reduction should be carried out.

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http://real.mtak.hu/46005/1/A%20TWO-AGENT%20MODEL-2016-real...

Molnár, Sándor and López, Inmaculada and Gámez, Manuel and Garay, József (2016) A two-agent model applied to the biological control of the sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis) by the egg parasitoid Trichogramma galloi and the larvae parasitoid Cotesia flavipes. BioSystems, 141 (2). pp. 45-54. ISSN 0303-2647

http://real.mtak.hu/46005/

http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.biosystems.2016.02.002