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Dispersive Epidemic Waves: I. Focus Expansion within a Linear Planting
Phytopathology
|September 11, 2025
Summary
Airborne spore dispersal influences disease spread, creating spatial gradients that shallow over time. Epidemic waves expand due to faster leading edges, unlike constant velocity models.
Area of Science:
- Plant pathology
- Epidemiology
- Atmospheric science
Background:
- Airborne spore dispersal is a key factor in plant disease epidemiology.
- Understanding spatial disease spread patterns is crucial for effective management.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the impact of three-dimensional turbulent spore dispersal on epidemiological contact distributions.
- To model simulated epidemics and their spatial disease gradients.
- To compare observed dispersal patterns with existing traveling wave models.
Main Methods:
- Simulated three-dimensional turbulent dispersal of airborne spores.
- Characterized epidemiological contact distributions and their length scales.
- Analyzed spatial disease gradients and isopathic velocities during simulated epidemics.
- Contrasted findings with traveling wave models based on exponential contact distributions.
Main Results:
- Spore dispersal created contact distributions with increasing length scales, approaching an inverse power law.
- Simulated epidemics showed shallowing spatial disease gradients as the epidemic progressed.
- Isopathic velocities increased linearly with distance, causing the epidemic wave to spread over time.
- Observed dispersal differed from models with bounded length scales and constant velocities.
Conclusions:
- Turbulent spore dispersal leads to unique spatial disease dynamics, characterized by expanding epidemic waves.
- Existing traveling wave models may require adjustments for dispersal mechanisms with unbounded length scales.
- The findings provide insights into plant disease epidemiology and the physics of particle dispersal.
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