Multi-species prey-predator dynamics during a multi-strain pandemic.

Area of Science:

• Eco-epidemiology
• Mathematical Biology
• Ecology
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Pandemics, both small and large-scale, are recurring natural phenomena that induce significant ecological and biological changes across diverse habitats.
• Pathogen mutation often leads to the emergence of multi-strain epidemics from single-strain origins, complicating disease dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel eco-epidemiological model integrating multi-species prey-predator interactions with multi-strain pandemic dynamics.
• To analyze the sensitivity and stability of ecosystems under multi-strain pandemic conditions.

Main Methods:

• Development of a new model combining the Lotka-Volterra prey-predator framework with the Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) epidemiological model.
• Extensive simulations using both synthetic datasets and real-world ecological configurations to test model performance.

Main Results:

• The proposed model successfully captures the complex interplay between multi-species ecological dynamics and multi-strain epidemic progression.
• Simulation results align with established ecological and epidemiological principles, demonstrating the model's validity.

Conclusions:

• The novel eco-epidemiological model provides a robust framework for studying the impact of multi-strain pandemics on ecosystems.
• The model's ability to realistically represent complex eco-epidemiological properties supports its utility in ecological and epidemiological research.