Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods for Fitting Spatiotemporal Stochastic Models in Plant Epidemiology

Strategies for controlling plant epidemics are investigated by fitting continuous time spatiotemporal stochastic models to data consisting of maps of disease incidence observed at discrete times. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are used for fitting two such models to data describing the spread of citrus tristeza virus (CTV) in an orchard. The approach overcomes some of the difficulties encountered when fitting stochastic models to infrequent observations of a continuous process. The results of the analysis cast doubt on the effectiveness of a strategy identified from a previous spatial analysis of the CTV data. Extensions of the approaches to more general models and other problems are also considered.