Modeling, Computation, Nonlinerarity, Randomness and Waves Seminar

The spotted lanternfly is an invasive species that is spreading in the Eastern United States. Introduced in 2014 to Eastern Pennsylvania, it has since spread within PA and to several adjacent states. Due to its ability to severely compromise lumber, grape, and crop production, it has been called ``the worst invasive species to establish in the US in a century.'' In this presentation we showcase our team's efforts to produce principled models for the lanternfly life cycle and its dependence on climatic conditions, with the goal to generate quantitatively accurate predictions of the pest's establishment potential across the country. In addition to interesting mathematical models and challenging work on properly calibrating the model parameters, this research also induces an intriguing need for specialized semi-exact moving mesh methods. We showcase how biological properties like diapause manifest in a characteristic rank-1 structure of the population evolution operator, and highlight predictions on the pest's future establishment, including how humans facilitate its spread.

Place: Hybrid: Math, 402 and Zoom https://arizona.zoom.us/j/85014462076  Password:  “arizona” (all lower case)