Complex networks and simulation strategies: An application to olive fruit fly dispersion

In this work a study for the role of different environmental factors to the evolution of olive fruit fly, via an appropriate network of population traps is given. More explicitly, the olive fruit fly is a parasitic insect that infests olive groves in many countries. Through the use of a network of traps a simulation model was developed and used to simulate the dispersion of olive fruit fly inside a real olive grove for different environmental factors, such as different starting areas of olive fruit fly presence, different temperature sets as well as different drifting distances. Results showed that the level of infestation of the grove was not dependent on the limited areas the olive fruit fly emerged but on the drifting distance a fly could travel per day.