Estimating Invasion Probabilities: A Case Study of fire Blight Disease and the Importation of Apple Fruits

A statistical method is proposed for the estimation of the probability of invasion of fire blight disease via the importation of apple fruits, by considering that the proportion of infected fruits varies depending on the production area and the year. The following three assumptions, which might be a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological invasions 2001-12, Vol.3 (4), p.373-378
Main Authors: Yamamura, Kohji, Katsumata, Hajime, Watanabe, Tomonari
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apples
Fruits
Plant diseases
Probability distribution
Statistical methods
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Summary:A statistical method is proposed for the estimation of the probability of invasion of fire blight disease via the importation of apple fruits, by considering that the proportion of infected fruits varies depending on the production area and the year. The following three assumptions, which might be applicable to biological invasions of several diseases of plants and animals, are used: (1) A beta distribution approximately describes the probability distribution of the proportion of infected fruits in the production area of a given consignment, (2) every consignment contains fruits that were drawn at random from the infinite population of the production area, and (3) each infected fruit causes infection of fire blight in the importing country by an independent constant probability. The estimate of the expected time required for invasion is 1707 years if we ignore the variability of infection, whereas the estimate is 334 years if we consider the variability. Thus, it is suggested that the estimation of the risk of invasion might be quite biased if we ignore the variability of infection.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:1387-3547
1573-1464
DOI:10.1023/A:1015850422395