Evolution of an asymptomatic first stage of infection in a heterogeneous population

Publication Year
2021

Type

Journal Article
Abstract
Pathogens evolve different life-history strategies, which depend in part on differences in their host populations. A central feature of hosts is their population structure (e.g. spatial). Additionally, hosts themselves can exhibit different degrees of symptoms when newly infected; this latency is a key life-history property of pathogens. With an evolutionary-epidemiological model, we examine the role of population structure on the evolutionary dynamics of latency. We focus on specific power-law-like formulations for transmission and progression from the first infectious stage as a function of latency, assuming that the across-group to within-group transmission ratio increases if hosts are less symptomatic. We find that simple population heterogeneity can lead to local evolutionarily stable strategies (ESSs) at zero and infinite latency in situations where a unique ESS exists in the corresponding homogeneous case. Furthermore, there can exist more than one interior evolutionarily singular strategy. We find that this diversity of outcomes is due to the (possibly slight) advantage of across-group transmission for pathogens that produce fewer symptoms in a first infectious stage. Thus, our work reveals that allowing individuals without symptoms to travel can have important unintended evolutionary effects and is thus fundamentally problematic in view of the evolutionary dynamics of latency.
Journal
J R Soc Interface
Volume
18
Pages
20210175
Date Published
06/2021
ISBN
1742-5689 (Print)1742-5662
Accession Number
34129793

1742-5662Saad-Roy, Chadi MGrenfell, Bryan TLevin, Simon Avan den Driessche, PWingreen, Ned SJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tResearch Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.2021/06/16J R Soc Interface. 2021 Jun;18(179):20210175. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2021.0175. Epub 2021 Jun 16.