An immuno-eco-epidemiological model of competition

• Main Authors: Souvik Bhattacharya, Maia Martcheva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2016-01-01
• Series: Journal of Biological Dynamics
• Subjects: Immunology; epidemiology; ecology; competition; multiscale modeling; immuno-eco-epidemiology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17513758.2016.1186291

This paper introduces a novel immuno-eco-epidemiological model of competition in which one of the species is affected by a pathogen. The infected individuals from species one are structured by time-since-infection and the within-host dynamics of the pathogen and the immune response is also modelled. A novel feature of the model is the impact of the species two numbers on the ability of species one to mount an immune response. The within-host model has three equilibria: an extinction equilibrium, pathogen-only equilibrium and pathogen and immune response equilibrium which exists if the immune response reproduction number $ \mathcal {R}_0>1 $ . The extinction equilibrium is always unstable, the pathogen-only equilibrium is stable if $ \mathcal {R}_0<1 $ , and the coexistence equilibrium is stable whenever it exists. The between-host competition model has six equilibria: an extinction equilibrium, three disease-free equilibria: species one-only equilibrium, species two-only equilibrium and a disease-free species coexistence equilibrium. There are also two disease-present equilibria: species one-only disease equilibrium and disease coexistence equilibrium. The existence and stability of these equilibria are governed by six reproduction numbers. Results show that for a non-fatal disease, the disease coexistence equilibrium is stable whenever it exists.