AUTHOR=Tadiri Christina P. , Kong Jude D. , Fussmann Gregor F. , Scott Marilyn E. , Wang Hao 

TITLE=A Data-Validated Host-Parasite Model for Infectious Disease Outbreaks

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

VOLUME=7

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00307

DOI=10.3389/fevo.2019.00307

ISSN=2296-701X

ABSTRACT=<p>The use of model experimental systems and mathematical models is important to further understanding of infectious disease dynamics and strategize disease mitigation. Gyrodactylids are helminth ectoparasites of teleost fish which have many dynamical characteristics of microparasites but offer the advantage that they can be quantified and tracked over time, allowing further insight into within-host and epidemic dynamics. In this paper, we design a model to describe host-parasite dynamics of the well-studied guppy-<italic>Gyrodactylus</italic> turnbulli system, using experimental data to estimate parameters and validate it. We estimate the basic reproduction number (<inline-formula><mml:math id="M1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="-tex-caligraphic">R</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>0</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:math></inline-formula>), for this system. Sensitivity analysis reveals that parasite growth rate, and the rate at which the guppy mounts an immune response have the greatest impact on outbreak peak and timing both for initial outbreaks and on longer time scales. These findings highlight guppy population average resistance and parasite growth rate as key factors in disease control, and future work should focus on incorporating heterogeneity in host resistance into disease models and extrapolating to other host-parasite systems.</p>