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Introduction to {epicrop}

{epicrop} provides an R package of the ‘EPIRICE’ model as described in Savary et al. 2012. Default values derived from the literature suitable for modelling unmanaged disease intensity of five rice diseases, bacterial blight (bacterial_blight()); brown spot (brown_spot()); leaf blast (leaf_blast()); sheath blight (sheath_blight()) and tungro (tungro()) are provided. The model uses daily weather data to estimate disease intensity. A function, get_wth(), is provided to simplify downloading weather data via the {nasapower} package (Sparks 2018, Sparks 2020) and predict disease intensity of five rice diseases using a generic SEIR model (Zadoks 1971) function, SEIR().

Using the package functions is designed to be straightforward for modelling rice disease risks, but flexible enough to accommodate other pathosystems using the SEIR() function. If you are interested in modelling other pathosystems, please refer to Savary et al. 2012 for the development of the parameters that were used for the rice diseases as derived from the existing literature and are implemented in the individual disease model functions.

Getting started

Load the library.

Get weather data

The most simple way to use the model is to download weather data from NASA POWER using get_wth(), which provides the data in a format suitable for use in the model and is freely available. See the help file for naspower::get_power() for more details of this functionality and details on the data (Sparks 2018, Sparks 2020).

# Fetch weather for year 2000 season at the IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station
wth <- get_wth(
  lonlat = c(121.25562, 14.6774),
  dates = c("2000-01-01", "2000-12-31")
)
## No encoding supplied: defaulting to UTF-8.
## No encoding supplied: defaulting to UTF-8.
wth
##        YYYYMMDD   DOY  TEMP  TMIN  TMAX  RHUM  RAIN     LAT      LON
##          <Date> <int> <num> <num> <num> <num> <num>   <num>    <num>
##   1: 2000-01-01     1 24.38 22.85 27.46 91.25 14.93 14.6774 121.2556
##   2: 2000-01-02     2 24.28 22.68 27.42 90.88  6.96 14.6774 121.2556
##   3: 2000-01-03     3 23.82 22.17 26.96 88.36  2.28 14.6774 121.2556
##   4: 2000-01-04     4 23.68 21.90 27.14 88.00  0.87 14.6774 121.2556
##   5: 2000-01-05     5 24.11 21.54 28.18 88.12  0.43 14.6774 121.2556
##  ---                                                                
## 362: 2000-12-27   362 24.46 22.90 26.28 92.49 21.15 14.6774 121.2556
## 363: 2000-12-28   363 24.64 23.32 27.28 91.92  6.01 14.6774 121.2556
## 364: 2000-12-29   364 24.58 22.51 27.90 90.79  5.49 14.6774 121.2556
## 365: 2000-12-30   365 25.31 22.84 28.84 86.25  2.07 14.6774 121.2556
## 366: 2000-12-31   366 24.47 21.63 28.63 87.83  3.45 14.6774 121.2556

Predict bacterial blight

All of the () family of functions work in exactly the same manner. You provide them with weather data and an emergence date, that falls within the weather data provided, and they will return a data frame of disease intensity over the season and other values associated with the model. See the help file for SEIR() for more on the values returned.

# Predict bacterial blight intensity for the year 2000 wet season at IRRI
bb_wet <- bacterial_blight(wth, emergence = "2000-07-01")
summary(bb_wet)
##      simday           dates                sites            latent        
##  Min.   :  1.00   Min.   :2000-07-01   Min.   : 100.0   Min.   :  0.0000  
##  1st Qu.: 30.75   1st Qu.:2000-07-30   1st Qu.: 933.1   1st Qu.:  0.7071  
##  Median : 60.50   Median :2000-08-29   Median :1821.8   Median : 12.6321  
##  Mean   : 60.50   Mean   :2000-08-29   Mean   :1618.2   Mean   : 65.3144  
##  3rd Qu.: 90.25   3rd Qu.:2000-09-28   3rd Qu.:2358.0   3rd Qu.:127.6284  
##  Max.   :120.00   Max.   :2000-10-28   Max.   :2620.2   Max.   :263.3863  
##    infectious        removed          senesced         rateinf       
##  Min.   :  0.00   Min.   :  0.00   Min.   :   0.0   Min.   : 0.0000  
##  1st Qu.:  1.00   1st Qu.:  0.00   1st Qu.: 113.4   1st Qu.: 0.0000  
##  Median : 17.76   Median :  1.00   Median : 642.6   Median : 0.9277  
##  Mean   :217.49   Mean   : 30.50   Mean   : 802.8   Mean   :11.3655  
##  3rd Qu.:388.35   3rd Qu.: 16.12   3rd Qu.:1408.6   3rd Qu.:19.9582  
##  Max.   :954.94   Max.   :361.05   Max.   :2290.1   Max.   :64.4181  
##    rtransfer        rgrowth         rsenesced         diseased       
##  Min.   : 0.00   Min.   : 9.688   Min.   : 1.000   Min.   :   0.000  
##  1st Qu.: 0.00   1st Qu.:22.653   1st Qu.: 9.331   1st Qu.:   1.707  
##  Median : 0.00   Median :33.113   Median :22.837   Median :  31.387  
##  Mean   :10.71   Mean   :40.300   Mean   :19.483   Mean   : 313.307  
##  3rd Qu.:16.81   3rd Qu.:57.582   3rd Qu.:26.072   3rd Qu.: 630.828  
##  Max.   :64.42   Max.   :79.690   Max.   :50.488   Max.   :1347.268  
##    intensity           AUDPC            lat             lon       
##  Min.   :0.00000   Min.   :12.54   Min.   :14.68   Min.   :121.3  
##  1st Qu.:0.00191   1st Qu.:12.54   1st Qu.:14.68   1st Qu.:121.3  
##  Median :0.01204   Median :12.54   Median :14.68   Median :121.3  
##  Mean   :0.10631   Mean   :12.54   Mean   :14.68   Mean   :121.3  
##  3rd Qu.:0.21640   3rd Qu.:12.54   3rd Qu.:14.68   3rd Qu.:121.3  
##  Max.   :0.43604   Max.   :12.54   Max.   :14.68   Max.   :121.3

Plotting using {ggplot2}

The data are in a wide format by default and need to be converted to long format for use in {ggplot2} if you wish to plot more than one variable at a time.

Wet season sites

The model records the number of sites for each bin daily; this can be graphed as follows.

dat <- pivot_longer(
  bb_wet,
  cols = c("diseased", "removed", "latent", "infectious"),
  names_to = "site",
  values_to = "value"
)

ggplot(data = dat,
       aes(
         x = dates,
         y = value,
         shape = site,
         linetype = site
       )) +
  labs(y = "Sites",
       x = "Date") +
  geom_line(aes(group = site, colour = site)) +
  geom_point(aes(colour = site)) +
  theme_classic()
Site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.
Site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.

Wet season intensity

Plotting intensity over time does not require any data manipulation.

ggplot(data = bb_wet,
       aes(x = dates,
           y = intensity * 100)) +
  labs(y = "Intensity (%)",
       x = "Date") +
  geom_line() +
  geom_point() +
  theme_classic()
Wet season disease intensity over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.
Wet season disease intensity over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.

Comparing epidemics

The most common way to compare disease epidemics in botanical epidemiology is to use the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) (Shaner and Finney 1977). The AUDPC value for a given simulated season is returned as a part of the output from any of the disease simulations offered in {epicrop}. You can find the value in the AUDPC column. We can compare the dry season with the wet season by looking at the AUDPC values for both seasons.

bb_dry <- bacterial_blight(wth = wth, emergence = "2000-01-05")
summary(bb_dry)
##      simday           dates                sites            latent      
##  Min.   :  1.00   Min.   :2000-01-05   Min.   : 100.0   Min.   :  0.00  
##  1st Qu.: 30.75   1st Qu.:2000-02-03   1st Qu.: 932.7   1st Qu.:  0.00  
##  Median : 60.50   Median :2000-03-04   Median :2493.8   Median :  3.50  
##  Mean   : 60.50   Mean   :2000-03-04   Mean   :1853.3   Mean   : 14.68  
##  3rd Qu.: 90.25   3rd Qu.:2000-04-03   3rd Qu.:2605.0   3rd Qu.: 19.93  
##  Max.   :120.00   Max.   :2000-05-03   Max.   :2721.3   Max.   :131.22  
##    infectious        removed          senesced         rateinf      
##  Min.   :  0.00   Min.   :  0.00   Min.   :   0.0   Min.   : 0.000  
##  1st Qu.:  1.00   1st Qu.:  0.00   1st Qu.: 113.4   1st Qu.: 0.000  
##  Median : 16.05   Median :  1.00   Median : 641.4   Median : 0.000  
##  Mean   : 62.04   Mean   : 15.72   Mean   : 823.9   Mean   : 2.447  
##  3rd Qu.:106.01   3rd Qu.: 17.05   3rd Qu.:1448.4   3rd Qu.: 0.532  
##  Max.   :240.65   Max.   :102.00   Max.   :2300.5   Max.   :36.912  
##    rtransfer         rgrowth         rsenesced         diseased      
##  Min.   : 0.000   Min.   : 9.688   Min.   : 1.000   Min.   :  0.000  
##  1st Qu.: 0.000   1st Qu.:28.326   1st Qu.: 9.327   1st Qu.:  2.179  
##  Median : 0.000   Median :34.302   Median :24.996   Median : 29.112  
##  Mean   : 2.447   Mean   :42.243   Mean   :19.558   Mean   : 92.442  
##  3rd Qu.: 0.532   3rd Qu.:57.742   3rd Qu.:26.918   3rd Qu.:162.383  
##  Max.   :36.912   Max.   :79.485   Max.   :46.521   Max.   :293.605  
##    intensity           AUDPC            lat             lon       
##  Min.   :0.00000   Min.   :3.342   Min.   :14.68   Min.   :121.3  
##  1st Qu.:0.00234   1st Qu.:3.342   1st Qu.:14.68   1st Qu.:121.3  
##  Median :0.01108   Median :3.342   Median :14.68   Median :121.3  
##  Mean   :0.02814   Mean   :3.342   Mean   :14.68   Mean   :121.3  
##  3rd Qu.:0.05138   3rd Qu.:3.342   3rd Qu.:14.68   3rd Qu.:121.3  
##  Max.   :0.09296   Max.   :3.342   Max.   :14.68   Max.   :121.3

Dry season intensity

Check the disease progress curve for the dry season.

ggplot(data = bb_dry,
       aes(x = dates,
           y = intensity * 100)) +
  labs(y = "Intensity (%)",
       x = "Date") +
  geom_line() +
  geom_point() +
  theme_classic()
Dry season site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for dry season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.
Dry season site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for dry season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.

As the AUDPC value is found in the AUDPC column and is repeated for every row of the data.table so we only need to access the first row. We can easily do this by calling the column using the $ operator and [] to select an index value, in this case the first row of the data.table. Optionally if you wished to used {dplyr} you could use the dplyr::distinct() function, which is demonstrated in the “Mapping Simulations” vignette.

# Dry season
bb_dry$AUDPC[1]
## [1] 3.34177
# Wet season
bb_wet$AUDPC[1]
## [1] 12.53946

The AUDPC of the wet season is greater than that of the dry season. Checking the data and referring to the curves, the wet season intensity reaches a peak value of 44% and the dry season tops out at 9%. So, this meets the expectations that the wet season AUDPC is higher than the dry season, which was predicted to have less disease intensity.

References

Serge Savary, Andrew Nelson, Laetitia Willocquet, Ireneo Pangga and Jorrel Aunario. Modeling and mapping potential epidemics of rice diseases globally. Crop Protection, Volume 34, 2012, Pages 6-17, ISSN 0261-2194 DOI: 10.1016/j.cropro.2011.11.009.

Gregory Shaner and R. E. Finney. “The effect of nitrogen fertilization on the expression of slow-mildewing resistance in Knox wheat. Phytopathology Volume 67.8, 1977, Pages 1051-1056.

Adam Sparks (2018). nasapower: A NASA POWER Global Meteorology, Surface Solar Energy and Climatology Data Client for R. Journal of Open Source Software, 3(30), 1035, DOI: 10.21105/joss.01035.