Dear Colleagues

*BioSS annual meeting, 13:00-17:00 Monday 26th November 2018, Surgeon’s 
Hall, Edinburgh*

On behalf of Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) I would like 
to invite you to our annual research meeting on the afternoon of Monday 
26th November 2018, at Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh.

The theme of this year's meeting will be Plant Health modelling with the 
annual Rob Kempton Lecture presented by Prof. Chris Gilligan. This will 
be preceded by three talks on BioSS research in this area (see below for 
details).

The event is free to attend, but for organisational purposes*please 
reserve a place before 10th November by emailing* [log in to unmask]

Yours faithfully

Glenn Marion
Head of Research, BioSS

*BioSS annual meeting 2018 *

Monday 26^th November 2018

King Khalid Building, Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh


13:00 - 14:00 Poster session

*Session 1 BioSS plant health modelling *


14:00 - 14:30 Katharine Preedy, /Host-parasitoid-symbiont interactions 
and the implications of drought stress for parasitoids as Bio-Control/

14:30 - 15:00Helen Kettle, /Quantifying natural bio-control of a rice 
pest in SE Asia using a dynamic stage-structured model and field data/

15:00 - 15:00 Stephen Catterall, /Inferring and predicting forest pest 
invasion dynamics from surveillance data/

15:30 - 16:00 Tea / Coffee

*Session 2 The Rob Kempton Lecture*

16:00 - 17:00 Rob Kempton Lecture presented by Prof. Chris Gilligan, 
/Models for emerging epidemics: managing the threats to food security in 
developing and developed countries/

*Abstract:***Emerging epidemics of crop disease threaten food security 
in both developing and developed countries. New strains of wheat rusts 
are threatening wheat world-wide: cassava brown streak disease, caused 
by an insect-vectored virus, is spreading through East and Central 
Africa, posing a major threat to West Africa, where cassava is a major 
staple crop. Fall armyworm, a pest of maize, has spread rapidly in 
Africa and has been reported in India. Citrus production is threatened 
in US and Brazil by an insect-vectored bacterial pathogen and Xylella 
disease of olives has entered Europe. New strains of banana diseases are 
devastating yields of another staple food crop in East Africa.

After a brief introduction to current threats to food security, 
particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, I will describe recent applications 
in modelling crop disease at the landscape, regional and continental 
scales. Our objectives are focused on improving preparedness by using 
models to inform surveillance programmes and to screen strategies for 
mitigation of emerging epidemics. Topics include 
computationally-intensive, stochastic compartmental models for pest and 
disease spread and the use of meteorologically-driven, Lagrangian 
particle dispersion models to predict long range spore dispersal and 
near real-time forecasting of disease risks. Another major challenge in 
dealing with emerging epidemics is to estimate critical parameters for 
dispersal kernels and transmission dynamics, often from sparse data for 
use in order to predict spread and gauge the effectiveness of 
alternative strategies for mitigation. I will illustrate some of these 
approaches involving Bayesian methods for temperate and tropical 
pathogens and outline practical applications for contemporary epidemics 
threatening food security.

*About the speaker: *Prof Gilligan is Head of Epidemiology and Modelling 
Group, in the Department of Plant Sciences and was Head of the School of 
Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge (2009-2013) where he has 
been a Professor of Mathematical Biology, since 1999. He has also 
chaired a number of influential committees, most recently Chair UK Tree 
Health and Plant Biosecurity Taskforce (2012-13). His research is 
focused on establishing and testing a theoretical framework that 
identifies the mechanisms controlling invasion, persistence, scaling and 
variability of epidemics in plants. This involves a synthesis of 
epidemiological theory, population and evolutionary genetics, landscape 
ecology and economic modelling, drawing upon methods from statistical 
physics and Bayesian statistical inference, and supported by a 
complementary experimental programme involving laboratory microcosms and 
collation of extensive field and regional data-sets to test the models.



-- 
__________________________________________________________________________

  [log in to unmask]               www.bioss.ac.uk/staff/glenn.html
  Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland,  +44 (0)131 650 4898
  James Clerk Maxwell Building,          Seminar series: bit.ly/1Ne1PTu
  Edinburgh, EH9 3FD                     PhD opportunities: bit.ly/1Nesi5l

  www.planthealthcentre.scot/       	www.spasepartnership.org/
  www.epicscotland.org/			www.legato-project.net/
  _________________________________________________________________________
  

Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) is formally part of The
James Hutton Institute (JHI), a registered Scottish charity No. SC041796
and a company limited by guarantee No. SC374831

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