Mwalusepo, Siza; Tonnang, Henri E. Z.; Massawe, Estomih S.
Description:
In this paper the performance of continuous host-parasitoid models were investigated. The parameter
values for several well-known models: Lotka-volterra, Holling Tanner Type 2, Holling Tanner Type 3,
Leslie, Bazykin, Beddington-DeAngelis, Yodzis and Rosenzwing-Macarthur models were estimated. The
models were tested on 40 consecutive sets of time series data collected at 14 days interval for pest and
parasitoid population obtained from a highland cabbage growing area in Eastern Kenya. Model
parameters were estimated from the minimization of the loss functions between the theoretical and
experimental time series datasets following the Nelder-Mead multidimensional method. Initial values of
population size and parameters were randomly chosen. Durbin-Watson statistic was applied for
comparison of model outputs and experimental population trajectories. Among the eight different hostparasitoid
models, Holling Tanner model Type 3 presented relatively better approximations compared
to the other models.