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 inf

SUBMITTER: Rimbaud L 

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

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature