Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Boerlijst MC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3000349 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Boerlijst Maarten Chris MC van Ballegooijen Willem Marijn WM
PLoS computational biology 20101209 12
Infectious diseases often spread as spatial epidemic outbreak waves. A number of model studies have shown that such spatial pattern formation can have important consequences for the evolution of pathogens. Here, we show that such spatial patterns can cause cyclic evolutionary dynamics in selection for the length of the infectious period. The necessary reversal in the direction of selection is enabled by a qualitative change in the spatial pattern from epidemic waves to irregular local outbreaks. ...[more]