Paper List

期刊: ArXiv Preprint
发布日期: 2026-03-11
BioinformaticsAgricultural Technology

PesTwin: a biology-informed Digital Twin for enabling precision farming

Multiple institutions (likely Italian research institutes and universities)

Andrea De Antoni, Matteo Rucco, Alberto Maria Cattaneo, Ege Gezer, Giuseppe Sulis, Paola Draicchio, Giovanni Iacca, Andrea Pugliese, Maria Vittoria Mancini
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30秒速读

IN SHORT: This paper addresses the critical bottleneck in precision agriculture: the inability to accurately forecast pest outbreaks in real-time, leading to suboptimal pesticide applications and significant crop losses.

核心创新

  • Methodology Developed a modular, biology-informed Digital Twin framework using Agent-Based Modeling that integrates heterogeneous data sources (lab biodata, weather stations, GIS) for pest forecasting
  • Methodology Implemented GPU-accelerated ABM using FLAMEGPU library, enabling simulation of up to 80 million concurrent agents for realistic field-scale scenarios
  • Biology Applied the framework to Drosophila suzukii (Spotted Wing Drosophila) with comprehensive lab protocols for parameter calibration, including temperature-dependent development using modified-Brierè functions

主要结论

  • The PesTwin framework successfully simulated SWD population growth in cage experiments, capturing biological variability across three replicates with stochastic modeling matching experimental data.
  • Field simulations showed qualitative agreement with trapping data, demonstrating capability to model pest dispersal, host interactions, and temperature-dependent lifecycle dynamics in realistic scenarios.
  • Simulation of Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) control strategy demonstrated potential to reduce pest populations by more than half (50%+ reduction) when implementing weekly releases during crop ripening season.
研究空白: Current IPM programs rely on calendar-based applications rather than real-time forecasting, consistently failing to predict within-season epidemics or space-localized infestations, resulting in premature or suboptimal pesticide applications.

摘要: In a context of growing agricultural demand and new challenges related to food security and accessibility, boosting agricultural productivity is more important than ever. Reducing the damage caused by invasive insect species is a crucial lever to achieve this objective. In support of these challenges, and in line with the principles of precision agriculture and Integrated Pest Management (IPM), an innovative simulation framework is presented, aiming to become the Digital Twin of a pest invasion. Through a flexible rule-based approach of the Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) paradigm, the framework supports the fine-tuning of the main ecological interactions of the pest with its crop host and the environment. Forecasting insect infestation in realistic scenarios, considering both spatial and temporal dimensions, is made possible by integrating heterogeneous data sources: pest biodata collected in the laboratory, environmental data from weather stations, and GIS data of a real crop field. In this study, an application to the global pest of soft fruit, the invasive fruit fly Drosophila suzukii, also known as Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), is presented.