Related papers: The context-specificity of virulence evolution rev…
The emergence or adaptation of pathogens may lead to epidemics, highlighting the need for a thorough understanding of pathogen evolution. The tradeoff hypothesis suggests that virulence evolves to reach an optimal transmission intensity…
Asymptomatic infection has gained notoriety as an important feature of infectious disease dynamics. Despite increasing attention, there have been few rigorous examinations of how asymptomatic transmission influences pathogen evolution. In…
As pathogens spread in a population of hosts, immunity is built up and the pool of susceptible individuals is depleted. This generates selective pressure, to which many human RNA viruses, such as influenza virus or SARS-CoV-2, respond with…
Antigenic escape constitutes the main mechanism allowing rapidly evolving viruses to achieve endemicity. Beyond granting immune escape, empirical evidence also suggests that mutations of viruses might increase their inter-host…
The relationship between traits that influence pathogen virulence and transmission is part of the central canon of the evolution and ecology of infectious disease. However, identifying directional and mechanistic relationships among traits…
Infectious disease dynamics operate across multiple biological scales, with within-host viral dynamics being a key driver of between-host transmission. However, while models that explicitly link these scales exist, none have been developed…
Although traditional models of epidemic spreading focus on the number of infected, susceptible and recovered individuals, a lot of attention has been devoted to integrate epidemic models with population genetics. Here we develop an…
A common theme among the proposed models for network epidemics is the assumption that the propagating object, i.e., a virus or a piece of information, is transferred across the nodes without going through any modification or evolution.…
Epidemic spreading of infectious diseases is ubiquitous and has often considerable impact on public health and economic wealth. The large variability in spatio-temporal patterns of epidemics prohibits simple interventions and demands for a…
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…
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…
Epidemic spreading over populations networks has been an important subject of research for several decades, and especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most epidemic outbreaks are likely to create multiple mutations during their spreading…
Mathematical disease modelling has long operated under the assumption that any one infectious disease is caused by one transmissible pathogen spreading among a population. This paradigm has been useful in simplifying the biological reality…
Epidemic models describe the evolution of a communicable disease over time. These models are often modified to include the effects of interventions (control measures) such as vaccination, social distancing, school closings etc. Many such…
RNA viruses exist in large intra-host populations which display great genotypic and phenotypic diversity. We analyze a model of viral competition between two different viral strains infecting a constantly replenished cell pool, in which we…
RNA viruses exist as genetically diverse populations displaying different phenotypes, including diverse degrees of virulence. The evolution of virulence in viral populations is, however, poorly understood. Based on the experimental…
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…
We use a multitype continuous time Markov branching process model to describe the dynamics of the spread of parasites of two types that can mutate into each other in a common host population. Instead of using a single virulence…
Epidemic models study the spread of an undesired agent through a population, be it infectious diseases through a country, misinformation in online social media, or pests infesting a region. In combating these epidemics, we rely neither on…
Viruses display striking diversity in structure, transmission mode, immune interaction, and evolutionary behavior. Despite this diversity, viral strategies are not unconstrained. Here we present a unifying framework that treats viral…