You should read this paper because….

Modelling of aphid pests, their parasitic wasps and changes to biological control.

We can do amazing things with models that we can’t do in real-life. We can build simplified species interactions and then predict what might happen to these interactions and the ecosystem services they deliver under changed conditions. In this paper Madeleine Barton developed a mechanistic model of aphid pests of canola and their parasitoids so we could alter the timing of their interactions and see what the outcomes would be. The models suggest that farmers may be more confident in this biological control partnership in the future even under altered climates. Good news for a change.

Madeleine Barton, Hazel Parry, Samantha Ward, Ary A. Hoffmann, Paul A. Umina, Maarten van Helden, Sarina Macfadyen (2021) Forecasting impacts of biological control under future climates: mechanistic modelling of an aphid pest and a parasitic wasp. Ecological Modelling, 457, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2021.109679