Arable: Modelling the impact of cabbage stem flea beetle on oilseed rape crops

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We propose the development of a process-based, mathematical model utilising stage-structured modelling approaches such as those pioneered by Nisbet and Gurney (1983; Theoretical Population Biology, 23 (1), 114-135) to enable forecasting of the population dynamics and phenology of the distinct life stages of the cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB), e.g., egg, larva, pupa and adult. This is a continuous time model based on the numerical solution of delay differential equations. Our prototype model has been built using software Kettle previously developed for generic stage-structured organisms (R package, stagePop (Kettle & Nutter 2015; Meth. in Ecol. & Evol. 6:1484-1490). This project involves incorporating weather dependency into the model which will result in a system of integro-differential equations but these can also be solved using the existing software, once the relationships have been added into the code. Many of these relationships are already published but where they need to be derived from data we will use the latest statistical methods. Thus the final model will be a combination of process-based modelling and data-based modelling to enable prediction of year-to-year variability and the effects of climate change in CSFB phenology. The model will be validated against abundance data (larval and adults) as well as unit tested and documented and made publicly available following BioSS's commitment to Open Science.