Related papers: Pathogen evolution in switching environments: a hy…
In biology phenotypic switching is a common bet-hedging strategy in the face of uncertain environmental conditions. Existing mathematical models often focus on periodically changing environments to determine the optimal phenotypic response.…
The theory of life history evolution provides a powerful framework to understand the evolutionary dynamics of pathogens in both epidemic and endemic situations. This framework, however, relies on the assumption that pathogen populations are…
We propose a stochastic model in evolutionary game theory where individuals (or subpopulations) can mutate changing their strategies randomly (but rarely) and explore the external environment. This environment affects the selective pressure…
The sustainable use of multicomponent treatments such as combination therapies, combination vaccines/chemicals, and plants carrying multigenic resistance requires an understanding of how their population-wide deployment affects the speed of…
In this work we have investigated the evolutionary dynamics of a generalist pathogen, e.g. a virus population, that evolves towards specialisation in an environment with multiple host types. We have particularly explored under which…
Frequency-dependent selection reflects the interaction between different species as they battle for limited resources in their environment. In a stochastic evolutionary game the species relative fitnesses guides the evolutionary dynamics…
Human pathogens transmitted through environmental pathways are subject to stress and pressures outside of the host. These pressures may cause pathogen pathovars to diverge in their environmental persistence and their infectivity on an…
Spatial extent is a complicating factor in mathematical biology. The possibility that an action at point A cannot immediately affect what happens at point B creates the opportunity for spatial nonuniformity. This nonuniformity must change…
Cooperation and competition between pathogens can alter the amount of individuals affected by a co-infection. Nonetheless, the evolution of the pathogens' behavior has been overlooked. Here, we consider a co-evolutionary model where the…
In this paper we study a class of stochastic individual-based models that describe the evolution of haploid populations where each individual is characterised by a phenotype and a genotype. The phenotype of an individual determines its…
We are interested in the impact of natural selection in a prey-predator community. We introduce an individual-based model of the community that takes into account both prey and predator phenotypes. Our aim is to understand the phenotypic…
In biology and ecology, individuals or communities of individuals living in unpredictable environments often alternate between different evolutionary strategies to spread and reduce risks. Such behavior is commonly referred to as…
The stacked contact process is a three-state spin system that describes the co-evolution of a population of hosts together with their symbionts. In a nutshell, the hosts evolve according to a contact process while the symbionts evolve…
Many biological systems regulate phenotypic heterogeneity as a fitness-maximising strategy in uncertain and dynamic environments. Analysis of such strategies is typically confined both to a discrete set of environmental conditions, and to a…
Understanding how a diversity of plants in agroecosystems affects the adaptation of pathogens in a key issue in agroecology. We analyze PDE systems describing the dynamics of adaptation of two phenotypically structured populations, under…
We introduce and analyze a within-host dynamical model of the coevolution between rapidly mutating pathogens and the adaptive immune response. Pathogen mutation and a homeostatic constraint on lymphocytes both play a role in allowing the…
The presence of phenomena analogous to phase transition in Statistical Mechanics, has been suggested in the evolution of a polygenic trait under stabilizing selection, mutation and genetic drift. By using numerical simulations of a model…
Mathematical models of infectious disease transmission typically neglect within-host dynamics. Yet within-host dynamics - including pathogen replication, host immune responses, and interactions with microbiota - are crucial not only for…
The evolution of two species with different fitness is investigated on degree-heterogeneous graphs. The population evolves either by one individual dying and being replaced by the offspring of a random neighbor (voter model (VM) dynamics)…
Is evolution always gradual or can it make leaps? We examine a mathematical model of an evolutionary process on a fitness landscape and obtain analytic solutions for the probability of multi-mutation leaps, that is, several mutations…