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Modeling invasive species spread in complex landscapes: the case of potato moth in Ecuador

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Abstract

Tropical mountains have a long history of human occupation, and although vulnerable to biological invasions, have received minimal attention in the literature. Understanding invasive pest dynamics in socio-ecological, agricultural landscapes, like the tropical Andes, is a challenging but timely issue for ecologists as it may provide developing countries with new tools to face increasing threats posed by these organisms. In this work, road rehabilitation into a remote valley of the Ecuadorian Andes constituted a natural experiment to study the spatial propagation of an invasive potato tuber moth into a previously non-infested agricultural landscape. We used a cellular automaton to model moth spatio-temporal dynamics. Integrating real-world variables in the model allowed us to examine the relative influence of environmental versus social landscape heterogeneity on moth propagation. We focused on two types of anthropogenic activities: (1) the presence and spatial distribution of traditional crop storage structures that modify local microclimate, and (2) long-distance dispersal (LDD) of moths by human-induced transportation. Data from participatory monitoring of pest invasion into the valley and from a larger-scale field survey on the Ecuadorian Andes allowed us to validate our model against actual presence/absence records. Our simulations revealed that high density and a clumped distribution of storage structures had a positive effect on moth invasion by modifying the temperature of the landscape, and that passive, LDD enhanced moth invasion. Model validation showed that including human influence produced more precise and realistic simulations. We provide a powerful and widely applicable methodological framework that stresses the crucial importance of integrating the social landscape to develop accurate invasion models of pest dynamics in complex, agricultural systems.

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Acknowledgments

This work was part of the research conducted within the project Innovative Approaches for integrated Pest Management in changing Andes (C09-031) funded by the McKnight Foundation. We are grateful to Jérôme Casas and Isabelle Chuine for their helpful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. We also thank Carlos Carpio and Mario Hererra for their technical support during moth monitoring in the field, and Frederick Saltre for insightful discussions regarding models’ validation. We would also like to thank the editor, Kirk Maloney, and two anonymous reviewers whose constructive suggestions greatly improved the quality of our contribution. VCP was financed by grants from the French Embassy in Ecuador and from the Département Soutien et Formation des communautés scientifiques du Sud (DSF) of the IRD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRD, UR 072, Diversity, Ecology and Evolution of Tropical Insects Team, Evolution, Genomes and Speciation Laboratory, UPR 9034, CNRS, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

    Verónica Crespo-Pérez, François Rebaudo, Jean-François Silvain & Olivier Dangles

  2. University Paris-Sud 11, 91405, Orsay Cedex, France

    Verónica Crespo-Pérez, François Rebaudo, Jean-François Silvain & Olivier Dangles

  3. Entomology Laboratory, Natural and Biological Sciences Faculty, Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, 1076 Av. 12 de Octubre and Roca St., Quito, Ecuador

    Verónica Crespo-Pérez & Olivier Dangles

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  1. Verónica Crespo-Pérez
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  2. François Rebaudo
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  3. Jean-François Silvain
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  4. Olivier Dangles
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Correspondence to Verónica Crespo-Pérez.

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Crespo-Pérez, V., Rebaudo, F., Silvain, JF. et al. Modeling invasive species spread in complex landscapes: the case of potato moth in Ecuador. Landscape Ecol 26, 1447–1461 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-011-9649-4

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