General Instructions
- Review the background for SIR
- Download
and print the PDF for the exercises
- Click
the Open Simulation button. The simulation settings open
in a window.
Scroll through the menus, noting the purpose of each parameter.
Each parameter can be set individually, and the default
values can be restored by clicking on the "Default Reset"
button. The default parameters represent the assumptions
of the example published by Knipling in 1979.
- Click on the Run Simulation button at the bottom
of the window to begin execution.
A
diagrammatic representation of the island of Curaçao,
divided up into "cells," will appear. The blue cells represent
sea, the green cells land, and the yellow cells areas infested
with the target insect. The intensity of the yellow color
is a function of the population density of fertile females.
In this simulation, we divide the island into three concentric
zones, Zone 1 being the innermost zone. The default places
native insects only in the center zone.
- Click
on the Next Generation button in the lower right
corner of the window to advance the simulation one generation
at a time.
....proceed
to EXERCISE 1 |
Introduction
The
first practical application of sterile insect release (SIR)
for the eradication of an insect pest was on the Caribbean
island of Curaçao, in the Dutch Antilles, 60 kilometers
off the north coast of Venezuela.
A
USDA team in a large-scale field test in 1955 drove the screwworm,
Cochliomyia hominivorax, a serious pest of livestock, to extinction
in just 10 weeks.
|
