ALBERT 1.0: A Tool for Tracking Asian Longhorned Beetle Risk and Spread

Example maps from the tool show how the risk of the Asian longhorned beetle spreads and changes in intensity each year in the infested area, starting from the first year of the infestation and including the effects of management activities.

Asian Longhorned Beetle Eradication and Risk Tracking (ALBERT) version 1.0 is a set of decision support and analysis tools that help assess the movement of the invasive Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) on the landscape and the distribution and intensity of risk in an infested area. The tools can estimate patterns of beetle dispersal and use this information to track changes in infestation risk on the landscape as new infested trees are found (increasing risk) and as management actions are taken (reducing risk). The tools provide annual risk maps based on past data, estimate changes in risk based on completed  management activities, and can project changes in risk based on planned management actions. This information can help managers improve their strategies for eradicating the beetle by identifying effective management strategies and procedures.

Overview

The Asian longhorned beetle is an invasive insect  that can attack many types of trees (including maples, willows, and elms). This species threatens forests in North America and northern Europe where it has no effective natural predators. Beetles can kill trees by tunneling through the phloem and xylem. This disrupts nutrient flow, makes trees more vulnerable to disease, and can weaken the wood, causing branches and trunks to break, which poses a risk to property and human safety.

Due to the serious ecological and economic threat posed by the Asian longhorned beetle, members of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization and countries such as the United States and Canada have adopted policies to eradicate it whenever infestations are found. An early study by Nowak et al. (2001) estimated that the beetle, if it were allowed to become established, would cost municipalities more than $660 billion. The costs to rural landscapes, including loss in lumber, ecosystem services, and tourism, would greatly extend these costs.

Currently, the only way to eradicate the beetle is to remove and destroy infested trees. The most reliable way to find these trees is through visual surveys, and it may take multiple surveys to achieve eradication. Infested areas can cover more than 100 square miles and contain millions of host trees, making eradication a costly and time-consuming process.

Tool Description

Photo Credit

USDA Forest Service image by Jennifer Chandler.

Asian Longhorned Beetle Eradication and Risk Tracking (ALBERT) version 1.0 is a suite of data management and analysis tools that can be deployed in Geographic Information Systems including ESRI ArcGIS Pro, where it can be run as a built-in geoprocessing tool. Users provide input data as a geodatabase (or similar structure) with points detailing the dates and locations of infested tree detections and polygons documenting completed and proposed management activities.

The tools operate in three primary phases:

1. The tool will format, organize, process, and in some cases repair the input data to prepare it for use in analysis.
   Data repairs are limited to replacing missing values and grouping variables, and these actions can be altered or restricted by the user. More information can be found in the publication ALB Hazard Management and Monitoring Version 1.0: an assessment and tracking tool for Asian longhorned beetle eradications in the United States.
2. The tool uses the infested tree records to reconstruct the pattern of beetle dispersal on the landscape and uses this reconstruction to estimate the probability of beetle movements based on distance and direction, which is called a dispersal kernel. The tool applies this dispersal kernel to the locations of known infested trees to estimate the distribution of risk on the landscape on a year-by-year basis.
3. Annual maps of risk are then modified based on the timing, frequency, and type of management activities carried out on the landscape including ground surveys, climbing surveys, and full host removals.

The result is annual maps that estimate the overall risk to the landscape based on beetle spread and management activities each year.

Applications

The tool can be used to track the progress of eradication on the landscape and to evaluate and optimize future eradication activity plans. By using hypothetical future survey and host removal activities as input to the tool, managers can estimate how potential management plans (such as changes in survey intensity, timing, and method) may impact changes in risk and eradication progress on the landscape. This process can include plotting the estimated tradeoffs between time, cost, and risk  to maximize risk reduction and minimize costs.

ALBERT version 1.0 Training Videos

Part 1: A Tour of the Model's Structure and Installation

Part 2: A Summary of Model Assumptions and Description Data Outputs

Part 3: Using the Tool to Plan and Optimize Planned Eradication Activities