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Limited role of spatial self-structuring in emergent trade-offs during pathogen evolution
Víctor Buendía1,2, Miguel A Muñoz1, Susanna Manrubia3,4
1Departamento de Electromagnetismo y Física de la Materia e Instituto Carlos I de Física Teórica y Computacional, Universidad de Granada, E-18071, Granada, Spain.
Scientific Reports
|August 22, 2018
Summary
Spatial self-structuring in pathogen populations can lead to emergent trade-offs between transmission and virulence. This study explores the conditions and robustness of these trade-offs, even with host mobility.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary Biology
- Mathematical Biology
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Pathogen transmission and virulence are key evolutionary variables often linked by trade-offs.
- In well-mixed populations, these trade-offs stem from physiological limits.
- Spatial self-structuring in populations may lead to emergent trade-offs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To characterize the mechanisms behind emergent trade-offs in spatially-explicit models.
- To determine the structural robustness of these emergent trade-offs.
- To analyze the conditions for evolutionary feedback between transmission and virulence.
Main Methods:
- Reexamination of a spatially-explicit SIR model.
- Application of invadability criteria to determine system dynamics.
- Analytical calculation of the boundary shape separating disordered and self-structured phases.
Main Results:
- An evolutionary feedback mediated by pattern formation can lead to a critical boundary.
- This boundary separates systems with and without emergent trade-offs.
- Host mobility can disrupt spatial self-structuring, but metapopulation dynamics may preserve emergent trade-offs.
Conclusions:
- Emergent trade-offs between pathogen transmission and virulence are possible in spatially structured populations.
- Pattern formation plays a crucial role in establishing and maintaining these trade-offs.
- Metapopulation dynamics can rescue emergent trade-offs from the disruptive effects of host mobility.
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