This two-year award will support US-Netherlands cooperative research between James Powell of Utah State University and Wopke van der Werf at Wageningen Agricultural University in The Netherlands. The objective of the collaboration is to develop spatial models for biocontrol of fungal diseases. A robust model for bio-control based on integro-difference equations will be constructed at both substrate and crop level. The models will be connected mathematically using analytic and computational homogenization techniques.
The Wageningen group has broad experience in the application and construction of models for ecological management and the PI brings to the collaboration his experience as a mathematical ecologist. The collaboration is expected to enhance understanding of spatial effects in ecology, use homogenization to connect varying scales in a realistic ecological problem, and establish spatial modeling as a useful technique in evaluating bio-control problems.
