Host Mobility Drives Pathogen Competition in Spatially Structured Populations
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the host-multipathogen metapopulation system.
At the macroscopic level the system is composed by a network of subpopulations connected via communication links that allow individuals to migrate from one subpopulation to the other. Inside each subpopulation the epidemic process take place. Susceptible individuals can be infected by the slow (fast) strain and change their status to
; infected individuals enter into the recovered class
at rate
and
, for the slow and fast strain, respectively. Different epidemic waves are produced by the two strains when unfolding independently in a population, as shown by the number of new cases (incidence) over time.