PARTNERS: North Carolina State University (NCSU) Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, USDA Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET)

SUMMARY: Researcher has been collaborating with FHTET, Bill Smith (EFETAC Biometrician), and other scientists to develop national-scale risk map products for several non-native invasive forest pests, including the sirex woodwasp (Sirex noctilio), the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus), and Phytophthora disease of alders (P. alni). The researcher's interest in mapping the risk of a pest species being introduced into previously uninfested regions has allowed much of the work to focus on addressing gaps in current knowledge about pathways of long-distance pest spread and pests’ subsequent access to host species in both developed and undeveloped landscapes. Gaps are being addressed through exploration and derivation of spatial and statistical data sets on international trade, pest interceptions, commodity and freight analysis, transportation corridors, landscape connectivity, disturbance, and other environmental factors, many of which are designed for different purposes and so must be adapted to a forest pest context. Work with FHTET has also extended to development and implementation of methodologies for tasks related to risk assessment, such as the design of national pest detection surveys and spatio-temporal modeling of pest range expansion. Furthermore, all of these efforts have informed additional work on other invasive pests, especially sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum) and a recently emerged threat, the redbay ambrosia beetle (Xyleborus glabratus).   

With support from EFETAC (and in collaboration with Bill Smith and others), research is being done on the representation of uncertainty in forest pest risk maps, with a particular emphasis on how to take typically non-spatial techniques for uncertainty management and place them in a spatial context. Current research topics include the visualization of uncertainty in spatial data sets used as input parameters for risk maps, techniques for error/uncertainty propagation, and multi-model approaches to inference that are intended to minimize uncertainty. Special interest exists in info-gap decision theory and similar conceptual approaches that consider whether the degree or level of uncertainty present in a risk assessment would be significant enough to change decisions made based on the primary results of the assessment.

STATUS: Ongoing

LINKS: 

NCSU Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources

Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET)

CONTACT: Frank Koch, NCSU Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, fkoch@fs.fed.us or 919-549-4006