CASAS Global Research Fellows have wide experience in conducting field studies on a very wide range of topics in agriculture, medical and veterinary entomology and parasitology, general ecology, bio-economics and eco-social aspects. The holistic CASAS approach to problem solving requires that the data gathered be used to formulate field testable models (see modeling approach). The approach is multi-trophic and includes the effects of weather as forcing variables driving the dynamics of the system. The approach assumes that all organisms acquire and allocate resources an analogous manner (including the economic level) as outlined in methods section. The model enables asking questions about the system being modeled from the perspective of any component of the system. This approach to modeling simplifies data collection and model development as the underling dynamics models have common structure across trophic levels and species, and the sub models each have similar form.

References

Gutierrez A P, Luigi Ponti and Gianni Gilioli (2010) Climate Change Effects on Plant-Pest-Natural Enemy Interactions. In Handbook of Climate Change and Agroecosystems: Impact, adaptation and mitigation, (Ed.) D. Hillel and C. Rosenzweig. Imperial College Press, UK. 452Pp.

Gutierrez, A. P. 1996. Applied population ecology: A supply-demand approach. 300p. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.: New York, New York, USA; Chichester, England, UK.