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New paper out on the role of host movements on multi-strain competition. Aug. 19, 2013

We show with a space-structured model of the spread of multi-strain pathogens that host mobility drives the outcome of the multistrain competition. Have a look at the article

Host Mobility Drives Pathogen Competition in Spatially Structured Populations 
C Poletto, S Meloni, V Colizza, Y Moreno, A Vespignani.
PLoS Computational Biology 9(8): e1003169 (2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The figure shows the competition between the two strains of the pathogen as described in the study. On the left, scheme of the model: at the global scale the two strains of the pathogen spread among subpopulations, carried by traveling hosts. At the local scale they infect the hosts within each subpopulations and compete with full cross-immunity. The two pathogens are characterized by two different infection dynamics (a slower dynamics and a faster one). On the right, the main result of the study: fraction of subpopulations infected by each pathogen as a function of hosts’ traveling rate (p), which provides a measure of the outcome of the competition. According to the value of peither the fast or the slow strain dominates the other and reaches the majority of the subpopulations.