Forecasting Lobesia botrana flight activity: A new semi-physical model

Abstract

Mathematical models can be used to predict the phenological development and voltinism of multivoltine pests with complete metamorphosis. Such models are valuable for creating decision support systems (DSS) that help farmers, engineers, and government agencies to set up optimal control strategies for pest containment and eradication. In particular, wine-growing regions of worldwide are frequently affected by the economically important pest Lobesia botrana. Several mathematical models have been proposed in the literature to describe the evolution, voltinism, demographic functions, and other characteristics of this moth. However, many of these models: (i) are based on experimental or field data specific to the regions where they were developed, making it difficult to extrapolate their results to other parts of the world, and (ii) are not predictive, but aim to describe the spatial distribution of the pest or purely biological developmental issues. To address this problem, we present a new model for predicting L. botrana flight peaks, fitted with data from Cuyo region, Argentina. Our model is based on first principles and can be easily adapted for other regions thanks to its interpretability. The model considers temperature, relative humidity, food availability, and biotic factors, such as mortality, fecundity, and pest development rates. In the validation phase, the proposed model was able to describe L. botrana voltinism for the Cuyo region with an absolute error of 216 male adults, corresponding to a precision of 89.6%.