Novel anthropogenic activity datasets and predicting long range introductions of invasive pests

If well-defined, human movement patterns can be used to characterize some of the mechanisms for accelerating the spread of agricultural pests and diseases in the United States. It is a major challenge to quantitatively characterize these patterns, especially on a national scale. We will be introducing two novel datasets, direction-specific traffic volume modelled onto a road network and household movement data originating from quarantine zones, that have been created specifically for modeling invasive introductions on a national scale. We will discuss their implementation in a statistical model that predicts long range introduction of European gypsy moth.