Research about collective action problems in plant health
|--- About this repository ---|
The files in this repository are connected with research carried out by Dr Sara Garcia Figuera during her PhD studies at the University of California, Davis. Sara's research was focused on the response mounted by the California citrus industry and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to the threat posed by the invasive citrus disease huanglongbing (HLB). HLB is caused by a bacterium which is vectored by an insect - the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP) that is also invasive in California.
Invasive diseases are often classed as quarantine or regulated pests by plant health organizations, meaning that detections will result in mandatory responses such as destruction of infected plants, imposition of quarantine zones and further mitigations aimed at reducing the chances for the pathogen (or pest) to establish and spread. HLB, in California, falls into this category, so the research on how this response falls into what would traditionally be called regulatory plant pathology or strategic plant health. We developed a novel interdisciplinary approach to the study in this case, explicitly tackling the human aspects of the epidemic, in particular the difficult issues connected with the need for cooperation and collective action.
More information about the response program can be found at the following websites:
- https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/citruscommittee/
- https://californiacitrusthreat.org/
- https://citrusinsider.org/
- https://www.datoc.us/
The repository contains three types of files
- PDF files of published manuscripts covering different aspects of the problem
- R program files used to carry out the statistical analyses and data processing reported in the papers
- The data files required to carry out the analyses
In the core of the research there are three papers (with their corresponding R and data files). An additional paper and associated files will be added at a later date. The repository is under development.