Integral Projection Models for host-parasite systems with an application to amphibian chytrid fungus.

ABSTRACT: Host parasite models are typically constructed under either a microparasite or macroparasite paradigm. However, this has long been recognized as a false dichotomy because many infectious disease agents, including most fungal pathogens, have attributes of both microparasites and macroparasites.We illustrate how Integral Projection Models (IPM)s provide a novel, elegant modeling framework to represent both types of pathogens. We build a simple host-parasite IPM that tracks both the number of susceptible and infected hosts and the distribution of parasite burdens in infected hosts.The vital rate functions necessary to build IPMs for disease dynamics share many commonalities with classic micro and macroparasite models and we discuss how these functions can be parameterized to build a host-para

SUBMITTER: Wilber MQ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5321654 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature