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Using sensitivity analysis to identify key factors for the propagation of a plant epidemic.

ABSTRACT: Identifying the key factors underlying the spread of a disease is an essential but challenging prerequisite to design management strategies. To tackle this issue, we propose an approach based on sensitivity analyses of a spatiotemporal stochastic model simulating the spread of a plant epidemic. This work is motivated by the spread of sharka, caused by plum pox virus, in a real landscape. We first carried out a broad-range sensitivity analysis, ignoring any prior information on six epidemiological parameters, to assess their intrinsic influence on model behaviour. A second analysis benefited from the available knowledge on sharka epidemiology and was thus restricted to more realistic values. The broad-range analysis revealed that the mean duration of the latent period is the most influential parameter of the model, whereas the sharka-specific analysis uncovered the strong impact of the connectivity of the first infected orchard. In addition to demonstrating the interest of sensitivity analyses for a stochastic model, this study highlights the impact of variation ranges of target parameters on the outcome of a sensitivity analysis. With regard to sharka management, our results suggest that sharka surveillance may benefit from paying closer attention to highly connected patches whose infection could trigger serious epidemics.

SUBMITTER: Rimbaud L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5792923 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Using sensitivity analysis to identify key factors for the propagation of a plant epidemic.

Rimbaud Loup L Bruchou Claude C Dallot Sylvie S Pleydell David R J DRJ Jacquot Emmanuel E Soubeyrand Samuel S Thébaud Gaël G

Royal Society open science 20180117 1

Identifying the key factors underlying the spread of a disease is an essential but challenging prerequisite to design management strategies. To tackle this issue, we propose an approach based on sensitivity analyses of a spatiotemporal stochastic model simulating the spread of a plant epidemic. This work is motivated by the spread of sharka, caused by <i>plum pox virus</i>, in a real landscape. We first carried out a broad-range sensitivity analysis, ignoring any prior information on six epidemi ...[more]

PMID: 29410846

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Dataset Information

Using sensitivity analysis to identify key factors for the propagation of a plant epidemic.

Publications

Using sensitivity analysis to identify key factors for the propagation of a plant epidemic.

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