Communications of the ACM
Computer Simulations Stay a Step Ahead of Invasive Insect Species
First spotted in Japan in 2012, the invasive plum longhorn beetle causes serious harm to peach and cherry trees.
Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a simulation predicting the spread of an invasive beetle species harming local flora in Japan's Saitama Prefecture. They tried several approaches and found that a simple model based on river lengths gave results which compared favorably with real world data. Good predictions could help authorities channel limited resources to where they are most needed.
A key aspect of managing invasive insect species is knowing where they will spread to each year. A team led by Associate Professor Takeshi Osawa has been working on computer simulations to predict that. They looked at Saitama Prefecture, where plum longhorn beetles, Aromia bungii, have become a problem in recent years.
The team describes its work in "Establishment of an Expansion-Predicting Model for Invasive Alien Cerambycid Beetle Aromia Bungii Based on a Virtual Ecology Approach," published in Management of Biological Invasions.
In creating their simulation, the team set rules based on three different variables: the number of cherry trees on record, the total length of rivers, and the total length of roads. They ran simulations looking for areas with high levels of virtual invasions, and compared them with real-life observations of the beetles over the same area. They established a predictive map of the future expansion of the species in the wider range of the simulation area.
From Tokyo Metropolitan University
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