AGRICULTURAL BIOSECURITY: HARNESSING DATA FUSION TO MEET EMERGING CHALLENGES TO CATTLE FEVER TICK ERADICATION IN A CHANGING WORLD

The long-term project goal is to enable the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program Tools (CFTEPT)platform to provide cattle fever tick (CFT) invasion risk projections under scenarios representing 1) changing climatic conditions, 2) shifting land use patterns, 3) increasing acaricide resistance in CFT strains, and 4) involvement of wildlife hosts. Supporting project objectives (Figure 2) include:Objective 1: Use data fusion methods to integrate disparate CFT-related datasets.Objective 2: Refine methods of identification of areas of suitable CFT habitat.Objective 3: Assess the risk of range expansion by each CFT species and strain.Objective 4: Integrate CFT invasion risk projections into the CFTEPTs platform.