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Multi-decade patterns of gypsy moth fluctuations in the Carpathian Mountains and options for outbreak forecasting

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Abstract

The gypsy moth is the most important defoliator of broadleaved forests in the Northern Hemisphere. We explored the patterns in the moth’s long-term dynamics and produced outbreak forecasts for seven countries located in central to southeastern Europe and extending into the Carpathian Mountains. We investigated how the outbreak periods and trends in the size of outbreak areas differ among the countries, the extent to which pest dynamics are synchronized, and how the observed patterns can be used to forecast outbreaks. We used long-term time series on outbreaks from about 1947 to 2013. The outbreak period ranged from 13 years in the northwest to 8 years in the southeast of the region; the periods were statistically significant in six of the seven countries (α = 0.05). Two distinct patterns in outbreak size were observed, i.e. while outbreak areas in the northwest were increasing, exceptionally large outbreaks occasionally occurred in the southeastern part of the region. Outbreak forecasts based on combined use of the Fourier Transform and ARFIMA approaches showed that outbreak predictability differs among the countries. An increase in outbreak areas, the control of which would require increased resources, was forecasted mainly in the central part of the region. Although the forecasts can support the forest management, there are limits to their use because of the complex relationships between the pest and the environment, which were not captured by our empirical forecasting models.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the projects ITMS 26220120069 (30 %) and ITMS 26220220066 (30 %) supported by the Operational Programme Research and Development funded by the European Regional Development Fund; projects supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under contracts APVV-0111-10 (20 %); project of the National Agency for Agriculture Research of the Czech Republic No. QJ1220316 (10 %); and project of the Internal Grant Agency of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague No. 20152004 (4 %) and A02/15 (4 %); and project Agrárklíma.2 VKSZ_12-1-2013-0034 sponsored by the Hungarian State and the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund (2 %). We thank to prof. Bruce Jaffee (USA) for linguistic and editorial improvement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest and Landscape Ecology, National Forest Centre – Forest Research Institute Zvolen, T. G. Masaryka 22, 960 92, Zvolen, Slovak Republic

    Tomáš Hlásny & Milan Zúbrik

  2. Department of Forest Protection and Entomology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21, Prague 6, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Hlásny, Jiří Trombik, Jaroslav Holuša, Karolina Lukášová & Marek Turčáni

  3. Institute of Measurement Science of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 841 04, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

    Marian Grendár

  4. Department of Forest Protection, Institute of Forestry Belgrade, Kneza Višeslava 3, Belgrade, 11030, Serbia

    Mara Tabaković-Tošić

  5. Department of Forest Protection, NARIC Forest Research Institute, Mátrafüred, Hegyalja u. 14, 3232, Hungary

    Anikó Hirka & György Csóka

  6. Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration, Pushkinska str., 86, Kharkiv, 61024, Ukraine

    Igor Buksha

  7. Forestry and Game Management Research Institute, Strnady 136, 252 02, Jíloviště, Czech Republic

    Roman Modlinger

  8. Department of Forest Protection, Entomology and Forest Climatology, Faculty of Forestry, Institute of Forest Ecosystems Protection, Agricultural University in Krakow, Al. 29 Listopada 46, Kraków, Poland

    Magdalena Kacprzyk

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  1. Tomáš Hlásny
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  2. Jiří Trombik
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  3. Jaroslav Holuša
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  4. Karolina Lukášová
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  8. Mara Tabaković-Tošić
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  9. Anikó Hirka
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  13. György Csóka
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Correspondence to Jiří Trombik.

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Communicated by C. Stauffer.

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Hlásny, T., Trombik, J., Holuša, J. et al. Multi-decade patterns of gypsy moth fluctuations in the Carpathian Mountains and options for outbreak forecasting. J Pest Sci 89, 413–425 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-015-0694-7

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