English

Synergy in spreading processes: from exploitative to explorative foraging strategies

Populations and Evolution 2015-03-19 v1 Statistical Mechanics Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems

Abstract

An epidemiological model which incorporates synergistic effects that allow the infectivity and/or susceptibility of hosts to be dependent on the number of infected neighbours is proposed. Constructive synergy induces an exploitative behaviour which results in a rapid invasion that infects a large number of hosts. Interfering synergy leads to a slower and sparser explorative foraging strategy that traverses larger distances by infecting fewer hosts. The model can be mapped to a dynamical bond-percolation with spatial correlations that affect the mechanism of spread but do not influence the critical behaviour of epidemics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1106.0848,
  title  = {Synergy in spreading processes: from exploitative to explorative foraging strategies},
  author = {Francisco J. Perez-Reche and Jonathan J. Ludlam and Sergei N. Taraskin and Christopher A. Gilligan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.0848},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

16 pages, 15 figures. 4 pages for main text and 6 appendices published as supplemental material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.218701

R2 v1 2026-06-21T18:17:49.576Z