McCallum, H, Fenton, A, Hudson, PJ et al. (7 more authors) (2017) Breaking beta: deconstructing the parasite transmission function. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 372 (1719). 20160084. ISSN 0962-8436
Abstract
Transmission is a fundamental step in the life cycle of every parasite but it is also one of the most challenging processes to model and quantify. In most host–parasite models, the transmission process is encapsulated by a single parameter β. Many different biological processes and interactions, acting on both hosts and infectious organisms, are subsumed in this single term. There are, however, at least two undesirable consequences of this high level of abstraction. First, nonlinearities and heterogeneities that can be critical to the dynamic behaviour of infections are poorly represented; second, estimating the transmission coefficient β from field data is often very difficult. In this paper, we present a conceptual model, which breaks the transmission process into its component parts. This deconstruction enables us to identify circumstances that generate nonlinearities in transmission, with potential implications for emergent transmission behaviour at individual and population scales. Such behaviour cannot be explained by the traditional linear transmission frameworks. The deconstruction also provides a clearer link to the empirical estimation of key components of transmission and enables the construction of flexible models that produce a unified understanding of the spread of both micro- and macro-parasite infectious disease agents.
This article is part of the themed issue ‘Opening the black box: re-examining the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | infection; heterogeneity; nonlinearities; modelling; infectious disease; transmission function |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemistry (Leeds) > Organic Chemistry (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Jul 2020 13:38 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2020 13:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rstb.2016.0084 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:162842 |
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