Abstract | [Jointly presented by Ali Abedi and Audrey Gonzales.] Pierce’s disease (PD) is caused by Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), a plant pathogen that infects grapevines. Sharpshooter insects transfer the bacterium, which multiplies in the xylem (water-conducting vessels), causing plant death. The objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between environmental factors and sharpshooter frequencies. The multivariate data set includes a sample of (n>30) insect frequencies and environmental variables (i.e. elevation, precipitation, cold hardiness) at different vineyard sites. The insect counts were yielded from vineyards which had traps set out over a period of one year. For the statistical analysis of the project, we chose a canonical analysis method, Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), which is developed by the Eigen-analysis technique. This method will be utilized to represent the significance of the vector-environmental variable relationships. The statistical analysis will be completed with the aid of the XLSTAT software package. |