Tri-trophic Ecosystem Oil Palm-Pests-Auxiliaries: I. Modeling and Simulation

A tri-trophic, physiological and ecological based ecosystem model is developed. It considers ecological processes of different development stages of insect pests and auxiliary insects. One of the ecological components in ecosystems, plant, is simulated using the functional-structural plant growth model GreenLab, and the population dynamics of insect pests and auxiliary insects are simulated by a dynamic discrete submodel. Biological and chemical techniques for insect pest management are studied. The numerical results revealed that (1) the parameter values of the model are sensitive to the population dynamics and (2) the time when auxiliary insects are deposited or pesticides are applied and the application frequency are crucial in order to control insect pest population.