Bayesian inference for spatio-temporal stochastic transmission of plant disease in the presence of roguing: a case study to estimate the dispersal distance of Flavescence dorée

Estimating the distance at which pathogens disperse from one season to the next is crucial for designing efficient control strategies for invasive plant pathogens and a major milestone in the reduction of pesticide use in agriculture. However, we still lack such estimates for many diseases, especially for insect-vectored pathogens, such as Flavescence dorée (FD). FD is a quarantine disease threatening European vineyards. Its management is based on mandatory insecticide treatments and the removal of infected plants identified during annual surveys. This paper introduces a general statistical framework to model the epidemiological dynamics of FD in a mechanistic manner that can take into account missing hosts in surveyed fields (resulting from infected plant removals). We parameterized the model using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and data augmentation from surveillance data gathered in Bordeaux vineyards. The data mainly consist of two snapshot maps of the infectious status of all the plants in three adjacent fields during two consecutive years. We demonstrate that heavy-tailed dispersal kernels best fit the spread of FD and that on average, 50% (resp. 80%) of new infection occurs within 10.5 (resp. 22.2) meters from the source plant. These values are in agreement with estimates of the flying capacity of Scaphoideus titanus, the leafhopper vector of FD, reported in the literature using mark–capture techniques. Simulations of simple control scenarios using the fitted model suggest that cryptic infection hampered FD management. Future efforts should explore whether strategies relying on reactive host removal can improve FD management. Author summary The dispersal of pathogen propagules is an important feature of spatial epidemiology that has a major impact on the incidence and distribution of disease in a population. In agriculture, properly characterising the dispersal of emerging disease is of great importance in designing science-based control strategies that allow pesticide use to be reduced. Although field epidemiological surveys can provide informative data, they are by nature rare while resulting from the interactions between disease spread and the undergoing surveillance and control. Here, we take advantage of a general statistical framework to model the epidemiological dynamics of Flavescence dorée (FD), a quarantine disease threatening European vineyards, in a mechanistic manner that can take into account missing hosts in surveyed fields (resulting from infected plant removals). We parameterized the model with a Bayesian approach using mainly two snapshot maps of the infectious status of all plants in three adjacent fields during two consecutive years. We demonstrate that on average, 50% (resp. 80%) of new FD infection occurs within 10.5 (resp. 22.2) meters of the source plant. Although FD mainly spreads locally from one year to the next, our results also indicate frequent long-distance dispersal events, a feature crucial to consider when designing control strategies.