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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Laura Wadkin, Professor Nick ParkerORCiD, Dr Andrew Golightly, Dr Andrew BaggaleyORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Invasive pests pose a great threat to forest, woodland, and urban tree ecosystems. The oak processionary moth (OPM) is a destructive pest of oak trees, first reported in the UK in 2006. Despite great efforts to contain the outbreak within the original infested area of South-East England, OPM continues to spread.Here, we analyze data consisting of the numbers of OPM nests removed each year from two parks in London between 2013 and 2020. Using a state-of-the-art Bayesian inference scheme, we estimate the parameters for a stochastic compartmental SIR (susceptible, infested, and removed) model with a time-varying infestation rate to describe the spread of OPM.We find that the infestation rate and subsequent basic reproduction number have remained constant since 2013 (with 𝑅0 between one and two). This shows further controls must be taken to reduce 𝑅0 below one and stop the advance of OPM into other areas of England.Synthesis. Our findings demonstrate the applicability of the SIR model to describing OPM spread and show that further controls are needed to reduce the infestation rate. The proposed statistical methodology is a powerful tool to explore the nature of a time-varying infestation rate, applicable to other partially observed time series epidemic data.
Author(s): Wadkin LE, Branson J, Hoppit A, Parker NG, Golightly A, Baggaley AW
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Ecology and Evolution
Year: 2022
Volume: 12
Issue: 5
Pages: e8871
Print publication date: 02/05/2022
Online publication date: 02/05/2022
Acceptance date: 08/04/2022
Date deposited: 03/05/2022
ISSN (electronic): 2045-7758
Publisher: Wiley
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8871
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8871
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