Resilient treescapes for a changing climate: a mathematical approach

Climate change is expected to lead to worldwide deviations from current forest densities and species distributions. Simultaneously, the predicted distortions in long-term weather patterns will encourage successful pathogen invasion by providing favourable conditions for survival. These two factors combine into an urgent threat to Earth's forests and the rich biodiversity they support. To ensure the survival of treescapes in the face of climate change, world governments require robust tools to support the prediction and management of hypothetical future invasions.

This project seeks to explore effective and economical strategies for building climate-resilient treescapes. We will achieve this by constructing a density-dependent, spatio-temporal stochastic wavefront model of tree disease spread and extending the model to a national scale. We will incorporate predicted changes to tree distributions and use the model to predict long-term disease spread in the face of climate change. In particular, we will focus on the spread of Oak Processionary Moth in the UK. Finally, we will incorporate mitigation strategies and use our model for scenario testing.

The primary aims of the project are to understand the effect of climate change on arboreal disease propagation and to advise agencies such as DEFRA on how best to manage disease outbreaks in the UK as climate change progresses.

Our progress can be assessed against five objectives:
1) Construct a sophisticated spatio-temporal model of tree disease propagation.
2) Use the model to predict when OPM will reach pest-free boundaries.
3) Expand the model to a national scale.
4) Determine long term spread of OPM in the face of climate change.
5) Determine viability of mitigation/intervention strategies.