About the Project
This project is one of three that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+DTP). The GW4+DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus six Research Organisation partners: British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Met Office, the Natural History Museum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. The partnership aims to provide a broad training in earth and environmental sciences, designed to train tomorrow’s leaders in earth and environmental science. For further details about the programme please see http://nercgw4plus.ac.uk/
Project description:
Controlling pests is as old as agriculture: to maximise harvest it is necessary to reduce pest numbers to acceptable levels. Chemical pesticides are to date the main management option against pests, however in the face of their potentially detrimental long-term effects on the environment and human health, biological pest control has seen renewed interest. In particular in greenhouses a wide range of biocontrol agents (from ladybirds to parasitoid wasps) may have a large potential as alternative or additional options in pest management.
Multispecies models often exhibit complex population dynamics caused by a range of underlying feedback mechanisms and external drivers (e.g. seasonality) [1]. This may lead to generation cycles and classical boom-or-bust predator-prey cycles. Pests can disrupt this complex, but natural, balance. It is not clear how management of the pest, in the form of chemical pesticides or biocontrol, will interact or interfere with these dynamics.
For pest management, optimality (control subject to minimising cost) and robustness (ensuring that management actions are effective in the face of parametric/model uncertainty and disturbance) are key issues, that have been studied for (primarily) single-species models of pests [2,3], see Fig. 1 (available on the university website link below) for an example of robust control, but in the context of multispecies interactions it is not obvious what optimal intervention means or how effectiveness is measured.
How can we reduce the disruptive impact of pests using chemical pesticides, whilst minimising cost (optimality) or guaranteeing effectiveness (robustness) in a complex multispecies community? How can we take advantage of natural enemies, whilst accounting for additional dynamical complexity? From a control engineering perspective these questions can be interpreted as strategies employing direct control (pesticides), indirect control (bio agents) and direct-indirect control (pesticide and bio agents). The project will formulate these questions as control design problems and will draw on tools and techniques from optimal and robust control theory to develop feedback control strategies.
The PhD student will have the opportunity to work closely with mathematicians and ecologists at the Universities of Exeter and Bath, and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Training will be provided in mathematical modelling, ecological dynamics, and optimal and robust control theory [2,3].
There will be an opportunity to visit Mexico (Dr Carlos Martorell Delgado, UNAM), applying the developed feedback control paradigm for multispecies networks to models for species-rich communities in Mexico [4] and to help to develop a better understanding of species competition and facilitation in these networks.
Please see http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=2613 for full information regarding applications.
Funding Notes
This studentship will be funded by NERC, and is only available to UK and EU nationals. You must have resided in the UK for three years prior to starting the studentship to receive funding for tuition fees and a stipend. Candidates from outside the EU are not eligible for this studentship. Students from EU countries who do not meet the UK residency requirements may still be eligible for a fees-only award but no stipend. Applicants who are classed as International for tuition fee purposes are not eligible for funding.
For further guidance about eligibility please refer to http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/documents/termsconditionstraininggrants-pdf/.
References
[1] E. Bairey, E. D. Kelsic, and R. Kishony, High-order species interactions shape ecosystem diversity. Nat. Commun. 7:12285 (2016).
[2] C. Guiver, C. Edholm, Y. Jin, M. Mueller, J. Powell, R. Rebarber, B. Tenhumberg, and S. Townley, Simple adaptive control for positive linear systems with applications to pest management. SIAM J. Appl. Math. 76, 238-275 (2016).
[3] K. Shea and H. P. Possingham, Optimal release strategies for biological control agents: an application of stochastic dynamic programming to population management. J. Appl. Ecol. 37, 77-86 (2000).
[4] C. Martorell and R. P. J. Freckleton, Testing the roles of competition, facilitation and stochasticity on community structure in a species-rich year assemblage. J. Ecol. 102, 74-85 (2014).
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