Spatiotemporal modelling the spread of invasive pests across Great Britain

Our research will investigate the spread of invasive species across the UK, identifying spatial patterns and developing predictive models. A key invasive pest of concern is the oak processionary moth (OPM) which is harmful to both oak trees and humans. The OPM diet consists of eating the foliage from oak trees, which leaves them vulnerable to other stressors and diseases. In collaboration with Defra, we will use the UK OPM dataset to develop spatiotemporal population models (using individual based models, partial differential equation-based approaches, and Bayesian inference) to predict the spread across the UK and guide mitigation measures.