Real-time insect monitoring: Breaking barriers to area-wide management of pests

Nancy SchellhornCEO & Co-founderRapidAIM Pty Ltd Brisbane, Australiawww.rapidaim.io

Insect pest are an expensive problem…

1bLoss

Corn Rootworm devastates US corn crops

Fall Armyworm in 12 African countries

650mCost & Loss

Codling Moth causes 650m loss and cost in apples in

China

2bLoss

Insect pests don’t recognise borders!

Not unique to Arthropods!

• Natural resources & conservation – water, birds• Air pollution• Natural disasters • Zombies

The solution: Area-wide management

● Support from many stakeholders (community & public)

● Know where & when pests show up, and

● Dynamic pest populations over time and across heterogeneous landscapes

• Edward Knipling – ‘father of SIT’• Exploited the fact that screw worm mate only once• 1st success of eradication was in 1954 screw worm

fly on the island of Curacao; • many dozens of programs globally for Tsetse fly,

codling moth, fruit flies, etc..

Sterile Insect Technique= mass-rearing and sterilization of a target pest, followed by the systematic area-wide release of the sterile males by air over defined areas

Top-down tool for AWM

Levins, R. 1969.Some demographic and

genetic consequences of environmental

heterogeneity for biological control.

Bulletin of Entomological Society of America, 15:237-240.

• 1st define meta-populations; Distinguished b/t the dynamics of single populations and a set of local populations;

• Model motivated by- and applied to- a pest control situation over a large region, which local populations would fluctuate in asynchrony;

• Model showed that control measures should be applied synchronously throughout to achieve suppression

June 1930- January 2016

Evidence of Success of Coordinated Actions of Many

Examples of pest control applied at an area-wide basis

• Coordinated timing of insecticide (Smith 1998; Lloyd et al 2010)

• Coordinated growing of trap crops (Sequeira 2001)

• Coordinated control of weeds (Mueller et al 1984; Abel et al 2007)

• Bottom-up tool of AWM - Wide scale deployment of genetically modified insect

resistant crops (Carriere et al 2003, Hutchinson et al 2010)

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Technological:

• advances in insect surveillance, data intake, and information communication

• changes driven by macro-economic trends

• shape technological solutions to remove barriers

The next wave

• insect detection & monitoring

• data flow

• communication

• coordination of area-wide control, and

• long-term suppression

Technological innovation can improve:

The RapidAIM Platform for Community -lead AWM TM

Integrated, easy to use, plug & play,

low-power devices, deployed as a

surveillance grid

TRAP

Patented sensors detect unique behavioural

fingerprint of an insect

SENSOR

The Product: Real-time pest location, safe

product selection, and validation

APP

This is a fruit fly...

18bTrade

threatened annually (USD)

36bCrops lost

annually (USD)

The #1 global biosecurity barrier to trade of fruit & veg

13

High Resolution Fruit Fly Monitoring = tight link with management actions

14

Trap ‘Life’

Feedback Loops

Manual Monitoring

Hang traps

Check trapsDetection

Communicateinformation

Deliver control

(7 days)

(1-2 days)(within24 hrs)

10-12 day feedback loop 2-3 day feedback loop

Real-time Monitoring

Hang traps

See detections In real-time

Deliver control

Validate Control is working

We’re different!

Easy to Use

Low cost /ha

Complicated

High cost /haTight feedback loopLoose feedback loop

● Real-time alert for rapid response = les s crop los s

● Targeted delivery & evaluation of crop-protection products

● Regional pes t a lerts = early warning and awarenes s

● Community-driven AWM

● Coordinated approaches

● Validation that control is working

Significant value by providing:

RapidAIM bus ines s modelFarm ProtectHigh res olution grid.

Real time alerts .

Pes t forecas ting.

Region Protect

Indus try wide pes t management alerts &

trans parency.

Regional forecas ting.

Grower

Ag Service Provider

Regulator

$30/ ha/ m $30/ ha/ m

$30/ ha/ m

Monthly subscription

RapidAIMAcros s a farm & area-wide with neighbours

RapidAIM Ins ect Bureau…acros s the region

Acceptance of AWM

Fairness

Complexity of AWM

Relative advantage of AWM

Observability of AWM

outcomes

Compatibility

Social challenges and constraints to AWM What are the factors that will allow people to work together?

Aditi MankadCSIRO

Mankad & Loechl 2017, Agron & Sust Dev

Intention to implement AWM:

Threat context

Self-efficacy re AWM

Threat severity of Qfly

Efficacy of AWM

Vulnerability to Qfly

Knowledge of Qfly

controls

Solution: Self-efficacy and ‘team spirit’ most important factors contributing to the intention of implementing AWM

Intention to implement

AWM:Social context

Team Spirit

Personal responsibility

What do others think

about AWM?

Willingness to

cooperate

Age

Mankad & Loechl 2017, Agron & Sust Dev

• Innovation in digital technology is removing barriers• New Industries are being created• The promise of long-term suppression is real

Conclusions

This is US!

Dr Nancy Schellhorn

CEO / FounderGlobally recognised Ag &

Biosecurity research, CSIRO; PhD Ento Univ.

MN; MS Eco/ BS Ag Univ. MO, USA

Ms Laura Jones COO / Founder

Insect & Monitoring Expert, CSIRO; BEnv Mgmt (Hons

1) Univ. Qld, AUS

Mr Darren Moore CTO/ Founder

Embedded software; Sensing systems, CSIRO;

IDIAP Switzerland, Motorola;

MEng, BEng (Hons 1), BIT, Qld Univ. Technology, AUS

Mr Stefan Aichholzer

Lead Software Developer

Software Engineer & Architect, Bio-medical

Engineering MSc, Spain & UK

Mr Thomas Smith

Front End Developer

Software Engineer; Deloitte Digital, Efficom

Dip Multimedia; BA Univ. Artois, France

RapidAIM

THANK YOU!

TM

Nancy Schellhorn, PhDCo-founder & CEOwww.rapidaim.io

EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES TO ACHIEVE AREA-WIDE PEST SUPPRESSION.

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Cost Effective Surveillance

• Reduces time Gov’t spends checking traps by 90%

• Saves the Gov’t 35% in surveillance costs

• Reduces cost of responding to an outbreak by 60%