Modelling evolution of virulence in populations with a distributed parasite load.

ABSTRACT: Modelling evolution of virulence in host-parasite systems is an actively developing area of research with ever-growing literature. However, most of the existing studies overlook the fact that individuals within an infected population may have a variable infection load, i.e. infected populations are naturally structured with respect to the parasite burden. Empirical data suggests that the mortality and infectiousness of individuals can strongly depend on their infection load; moreover, the shape of distribution of infection load may vary on ecological and evolutionary time scales. Here we show that distributed infection load may have important consequences for the eventual evolution of virulence as compared to a similar model without structuring. Mathematically, we consider an SI model, whe

SUBMITTER: Sandhu SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7012800 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature