Related papers: Pathogen evolution: slow and steady spreads the be…
We have developed a mathematical model that captures stress-induced mutagenesis, a fundamental aspect of pathogenic and neoplastic evolutionary dynamics, on the fitness landscape with multiple relevant genetic traits as a high-dimensional…
Despite being similar in structure, functioning, and size viral pathogens enjoy very different mostly well-defined ways of life. They occupy their hosts for a few days (influenza), for a few weeks (measles), or even lifelong (HCV), which…
The main topic of this thesis is the analysis of evolution equations reflecting issues in ecology and population dynamics. In mathematical modelling, the impact of environmental elements and the interaction between species is read into the…
Due to the conventional distinction between ecological (rapid) and evolutionary (slow)timescales, ecological and population models to date have typically ignored the effects of evolution. Yet the potential for rapid evolutionary change has…
The spatio-temporal dynamics of a population present one of the most fascinating aspects and challenges for ecological modelling. In this article we review some simple mathematical models, based on one dimensional…
Non-selective effects, like genetic drift, are an important factor in modern conceptions of evolution, and have been extensively studied for constant population sizes. Here, we consider non-selective evolution in the case of growing…
Population survival depends on a large set of factors that includes environment structure. Due to landscape heterogeneity, species can occupy particular regions that provide the ideal scenario for development, working as a refuge from…
A tumor can be thought of as an ecosystem, which critically means that we cannot just consider it as a collection of mutated cells but more as a complex system of many interacting cellular and microenvironmental elements. At its simplest, a…
The behavior of interacting populations typically displays irregular temporal and spatial patterns that are difficult to reconcile with an underlying deterministic dynamics. A classical example is the heterogeneous distribution of plankton…
Predicting the adaptation of populations to a changing environment is crucial to assess the impact of human activities on biodiversity. Many theoretical studies have tackled this issue by modeling the evolution of quantitative traits…
The unwelcome evolution of malignancy during cancer progression emerges through a selection process in a complex heterogeneous population structure. In the present work, we investigate evolutionary dynamics in a phenotypically heterogeneous…
Theoretical analysis proves that human survivability is dominated by an unusual physical, rather than biological, mechanism, which yields an exact law. The law agrees with all experimental data, but, contrary to existing theories, it is the…
We consider the problem of determining the time evolution of a trait distribution in a mathematical model of non-uniform populations with parametric heterogeneity. This means that we consider only heterogeneous populations in which…
The interplay of biological, social, structural and random factors makes disease forecasting extraordinarily complex. The course of an epidemic exhibits average growth dynamics determined by features of the pathogen and the population, yet…
We introduce and analyse an individual-based evolutionary model, in which a population of genetically diverse organisms compete with each other for limited resources. Through theoretical analysis and stochastic simulations, we show that the…
We propose a mathematical framework for natural selection in finite populations. Traditionally, many of the selection-based processes used to describe cultural and genetic evolution (such as imitation and birth-death models) have been…
The importation and subsequent establishment of novel pathogenic strains in a population is subject to a large degree of uncertainty due to the stochastic nature of the disease dynamics. Mathematical models need to take this stochasticity…
A simple, but ``classical``, stochastic model for epidemic spread in a finite, but large, population is studied. The progress of the epidemic can be divided into three different phases that requires different tools to analyse. Initially the…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
The evolution of antimicrobial resistance generally occurs in an environment where antimicrobial concentration is variable, which has dramatic consequences on the microorganisms' fitness landscape, and thus on the evolution of resistance.…