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Host mobility drives pathogen competition in spatially structured populations

Chiara Poletto1, Sandro Meloni, Vittoria Colizza

  • 1Computational Epidemiology Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange, Turin, Italy. chiara.poletto@isi.it

Plos Computational Biology
|August 23, 2013
PubMed

Insights

Host mobility and population structure critically influence infectious disease dynamics. This study reveals how these factors determine which pathogen strain dominates or if both coexist in a metapopulation network.

Area of Science:

  • Epidemiology
  • Mathematical Biology
  • Population Dynamics

Background:

  • Understanding pathogen interactions is crucial for public health, pathogen emergence, and evolution.
  • Host-pathogen systems are complex, influenced by factors like host mobility and population structure.
  • Competition between multiple infectious agents occurs at various scales, from within-host to population levels.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the dynamics of two competing pathogens within a structured host population.
  • To assess the impact of host mobility patterns on pathogen competition outcomes.
  • To explore how population structure and host movement influence strain dominance or codominance.

Main Methods:

  • A metapopulation network model was used to represent the spatial structure of the host population.
  • Two pathogen strains with identical transmission potential but different infectious periods were studied.
  • The model analyzed competition dynamics under varying host mobility patterns across population patches.

Main Results:

  • Different scenarios emerged, leading to the competitive success of one strain or the codominance of both.
  • The dominance of a strain (shorter or longer infectious period) was found to depend exclusively on population structure and host mobility.
  • Host mobility patterns significantly altered the outcome of pathogen competition within the metapopulation.

Conclusions:

  • Host population structure and mobility are key determinants in multipathogen systems.
  • The findings highlight the critical role of spatial dynamics in shaping infectious disease competition.
  • The modeling framework can be extended to incorporate additional epidemiological, environmental, and demographic factors for comprehensive multipathogen analysis.

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