The proportion of resistant hosts in mixtures should be biased towards the resistance with the lowest breaking cost
Fig 2
Prevalence of the disease (P, black line) at equilibrium as a function of the proportion of resistance 2 (p), when varieties epidemiologically interchangeable (c1 = c2).
(A) When priming occurs (ρ = 0.7), the optimal proportion deviates from p = 0.5. (B) In absence of priming (ρ = 0), the disease prevalence is minimized for a range of p values. The colored areas correspond to different genetic compositions of the pathogen population at equilibrium. From left to right: monovirulent 1 only, coexistence of monovirulent 1 and doubly virulent, doubly virulent only, coexistence of monovirulent 2 and doubly virulent, and monovirulent 2 only. Parameter values: R = 7, ν = 1, and c1 = c2 = 0.4. The prevalences are the same at the edges (p = 0 and p = 1, in which one or the other monovirulent genotype is present) or in the middle region (in which only the doubly virulent genotype is present) regardless of whether priming occurs (A) or not (B). Priming only has an effect in the intermediate regions, in which a monovirulent genotype coexists with the doubly virulent one (in the absence of priming).