The dynamics of disease in a metapopulation: The role of dispersal range.

ABSTRACT: The establishment and spread of a disease within a metapopulation is influenced both by dynamics within each population and by the host and pathogen spatial processes through which they are connected. We develop a spatially explicit metapopulation model to investigate how the form of host and disease dispersal jointly influence the probability of disease establishment and invasion. We show that diseases are more likely to establish if both the host and the disease tend to disperse locally, since the former leads to the spatial aggregation of host populations in the environment while the latter facilitates the pathogen's exploitation of this spatial pattern. In contrast, local pathogen dispersal is likely to reduce the probability of subsequent disease spread because it increases the spatia

SUBMITTER: North AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5360276 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature