Hearne Scientific Software has released new versions of the award winning CLIMEX and DYMEX programmes.
CLIMEX helps one to understand the impact of climate change on species distribution and the potential risk from invasive species to an agricultural region. CLIMEX enables one to assess the risk of a pest species establishing in a new location and the potential success or failure of a biological control agent.
In almost forty countries around the world, CLIMEX is used to model, predict and help control invasive insects. Insect infestation destroys billions of dollars worth of commercial crops annually, and monitoring and controlling invasive insects in a warming world is increasingly important.
Agriculturalists and environmental scientists all over the world are adopting CLIMEX for insect modelling and universities are incorporating CLIMEX into their environmental science courses.
To-date CLIMEX has been applied in the areas of forest pests and diseases, crop pests, weeds, livestock pests, biological control, global change, vertebrate pests, environmental pests, conservation, public health and climate change and plant breeding. Another application of CLIMEX is predicting the potential distribution of genetically modified (transgenic) crops.
Research Connections and Consulting’s CLIMEX predictions for transgenic cotton in northern Australia are in agreement with local experience. The inclusion of grided meteorological data sets was especially useful for Research Connections and Consulting’s modelling.
The complete list of Citations and Applications of CLIMEX are available on the Hearne web site.
Major new features in CLIMEX version 3
- Two species can now be fitted with interactions between them (either competition or synergy) specified via parameters.
- Radiation is available as an additional component to the Growth Index.
- Two non-specific components (definable by the user) can be added to the Growth Index. These are the Physical Substrate Index and the Biotic Substrate Index. The variables determining these indices can either be specified as a single value for all locations or can be location specific and read from the MetManager.
- Automatic fitting of the parameter values that determine the Stress indices is available via a genetic algorithm based fitting routine.
- Regional matching (i.e., the use of a set of locations for the Home location in the Match Climates function) is available.
- The MetManager application has been extended to allow the importation of up to 5 user-defined location constants as well as up to 5 user-defined variables.
The models produced with DYMEX help to summarise one’s understanding of an organism’s population dynamics, identify gaps in knowledge, and rapidly evaluate management options.
The dynamics of animal and plant populations are influenced by many factors, and understanding the response of a population to a multitude of external factors can be difficult. Simulation models are a powerful means of representing such systems and allowing users to interact with them.
DYMEX enables the user to build a class of ecological models referred to as mechanistic or process-based models, without the need to know a computer programming language. DYMEX consists of two programs: a Builder and a Simulator that provide a user friendly platform on which to create and run population models.
DYMEX helps the Malaysian Department of Agriculture in preparing its pest models and deciding control actions. The GIS component helps the Malaysian Department of Agriculture even more for decision making.
With DYMEX version 3.0, populations can be divided into separate sub-populations (demes) within the model to represent, for example, genetic types or spatial units. Operations on lifestage processes have been greatly simplified via a new Lifestage Window. The Lifecycle module can now contain factors that belong to the lifecycle as a whole (i.e., they are not part of lifestage processes).
CLIMEX and DYMEX were originally developed by CSIRO Entomology and are now developed by Hearne Technology. The software was a complex research tool developed by scientists for scientists.
The partnership between Hearne and CSIRO has turned it into a much more user-friendly and well-supported application that is getting much wider use, according to CSIRO Entomology.