Speaker
Description
The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is an environmentally friendly strategy for suppressing mosquito populations that transmit diseases such as dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya. We investigate SIT-based control of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes using a spatially explicit reaction–diffusion model describing the dynamics of wild males, wild females, and released sterile males. The model incorporates mosquito dispersal, together with a biologically motivated Ricker-type density-dependent recruitment function that captures the regulation of mosquito reproduction due to competition and resource limitations at earlier aquatic stages, and allows for spatially heterogeneous releases of sterile males.
Numerical simulations show how the magnitude, spatial distribution, and timing of sterile male releases affect suppression outcomes. The results confirm that the critical release threshold previously identified in an ODE model without spatial mosquito dispersal \cite{Bliman2019} persists in the spatially explicit setting, separating two long-term regimes: persistence of the wild mosquito population at a reduced equilibrium or its eventual elimination. Spatial heterogeneity strongly influences the dynamics. Uniformly distributed releases tend to produce faster suppression, whereas poorly located release sites may allow mosquitoes to persist locally.
These findings highlight the importance of spatially informed release strategies for effective SIT programs in heterogeneous environments.
Bibliography
@article{Bliman2019,
title = {Implementation of control strategies for sterile insect techniques},
author={Bliman, P.-A. and Cardona-Salgado, D. and Dumont, Y. and Vasilieva, O.},
journal = {Mathematical Biosciences},
volume = {314},
pages = {43-60},
year = {2019}
}
