Classifying the role of trade-offs in the evolutionary diversity of pathogens

Author(s):  
Ivana Gudelj ◽  
Ciprian D Coman ◽  
Robert E Beardmore

In this paper we use a system of non-local reaction–diffusion equations to study the effect of host heterogeneity on the phenotypic evolution of a pathogen population. The evolving phenotype is taken to be the transmission rate of the pathogen on the different hosts, and in our system there are two host populations present. The central feature of our model is a trade-off relationship between the transmission rates on these hosts, which means that an increase in the pathogen transmission on one host will lead to a decrease in the pathogen transmission on the other. The purpose of the paper is to develop a classification of phenotypic diversity as a function of the shape of the trade-off relationship and this is achieved by determining the maximum number of phenotypes a pathogen population can support in the long term, for a given form of the trade-off. Our findings are then compared with results obtained by applying classical theory from evolutionary ecology and the more recent adaptive dynamics method to the same host–pathogen system. We find our work to be in good agreement with these two approaches.

2010 ◽  
Vol 100 (11) ◽  
pp. 1169-1175 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. van den Berg ◽  
C. A. Gilligan ◽  
D. J. Bailey ◽  
F. van den Bosch

Periodicity in host availability is common in agricultural systems. Although it is known to have profound effects on plant pathogen abundance, the evolutionary consequences of periodicity for the pathogen population have not previously been analyzed. An epidemiological model incorporating periodic absence of the host crop is combined with the theory of adaptive dynamics to determine whether or not seasonality in host presence plays a role in the occurrence of evolutionary branching, leading to coexisting yet genetically distinct pathogen phenotypes. The study is motivated and illustrated by the specific example of take-all disease of wheat, caused by the pathogen Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici, for which two coexisting but genetically distinct types and a trade-off related to seasonality in host presence have been identified. Numerical simulations are used to show that a trade-off between the pathogen transmission rate and the survival of the pathogen between cropping seasons cannot account for the evolutionary branching observed in many pathogens. Model elaborations show that this conclusion holds for a broad range of putative mechanisms. Although the analysis is motivated and illustrated by the specific example of take-all of wheat, the results apply to a broad range of pathogens.


2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1956) ◽  
pp. 20210900
Author(s):  
Elisa Visher ◽  
Claire Evensen ◽  
Sarah Guth ◽  
Edith Lai ◽  
Marina Norfolk ◽  
...  

There is increasing interest in the role that evolution may play in current and future pandemics, but there is often also considerable confusion about the actual evolutionary predictions. This may be, in part, due to a historical separation of evolutionary and medical fields, but there is a large, somewhat nuanced body of evidence-supported theory on the evolution of infectious disease. In this review, we synthesize this evolutionary theory in order to provide a framework for clearer understanding of the key principles. Specifically, we discuss the selection acting on zoonotic pathogens' transmission rates and virulence at spillover and during emergence. We explain how the direction and strength of selection during epidemics of emerging zoonotic disease can be understood by a three Ts framework: trade-offs, transmission, and time scales. Virulence and transmission rate may trade-off, but transmission rate is likely to be favoured by selection early in emergence, particularly if maladapted zoonotic pathogens have ‘no-cost’ transmission rate improving mutations available to them. Additionally, the optimal virulence and transmission rates can shift with the time scale of the epidemic. Predicting pathogen evolution, therefore, depends on understanding both the trade-offs of transmission-improving mutations and the time scales of selection.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Yacine ◽  
Nicolas Loeuille

AbstractA large number of plant traits are subject to an ecological trade-off between attracting pollinators and escaping herbivores. The interplay of both plant-animal interactions determines their evolution. Within a plant-pollinator-herbivore community in which interaction strengths depend on trait-matching, eco-evolutionary dynamics are studied using the framework of adaptive dynamics. We characterize the type of selection acting on the plant phenotype and the consequences for multispecies coexistence. We find that pollination favors stabilizing selection and coexistence. In contrast, herbivory fosters runaway selection, which threatens plant-animal coexistence. These contrasting dynamics highlight the key role of ecological trade-offs in structuring ecological communities. In particular, we show that disruptive selection is possible when such trade-offs are strong. While the interplay of pollination and herbivory is known to maintain plant polymorphism in several cases, our work suggests that it might also have fueled the diversification process itself.


2008 ◽  
Vol 03 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 227-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
NORBERTO A. MAIDANA ◽  
HYUN M. YANG

In this work we study a spatial model for the West Nile Virus (WNV) propagation across the USA from the east to the west. WNV is an arthropod-borne flavivirus that appeared at first time in New York city in the summer of 1999 and then spread prolifically within birds. Mammals, as human and horse, do not develop sufficiently high bloodstream titers to play a significant role in transmission, which is the reason to consider the mosquito-bird cycle. The proposed model aims to study this propagation in a system of partial differential reaction-diffusion equations considering the mosquito and the avian populations. The diffusion is allowed to both populations, being greater in avian than in the mosquito. When a threshold value R0, depending on the model's parameters, is greater than one, the disease remains endemic and could propagate to regions previously free of disease. The travelling wave solutions of the model are studied to determine the speed of the disease propagation. This wave speed is obtained as a function of the model's parameters, for instance, vertical transmission rate and avian diffusion coefficient.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olive Emil Wetter ◽  
Jürgen Wegge ◽  
Klaus Jonas ◽  
Klaus-Helmut Schmidt

In most work contexts, several performance goals coexist, and conflicts between them and trade-offs can occur. Our paper is the first to contrast a dual goal for speed and accuracy with a single goal for speed on the same task. The Sternberg paradigm (Experiment 1, n = 57) and the d2 test (Experiment 2, n = 19) were used as performance tasks. Speed measures and errors revealed in both experiments that dual as well as single goals increase performance by enhancing memory scanning. However, the single speed goal triggered a speed-accuracy trade-off, favoring speed over accuracy, whereas this was not the case with the dual goal. In difficult trials, dual goals slowed down scanning processes again so that errors could be prevented. This new finding is particularly relevant for security domains, where both aspects have to be managed simultaneously.


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Afrouzi ◽  
S. H. Rasouli

The aim of this article is to study the existence of positive weak solution for a quasilinear reaction-diffusion system with Dirichlet boundary conditions,− div(|∇u1|p1−2∇u1) = λu1α11u2α12... unα1n,   x ∈ Ω,− div(|∇u2|p2−2∇u2) = λu1α21u2α22... unα2n,   x ∈ Ω, ... , − div(|∇un|pn−2∇un) = λu1αn1u2αn2... unαnn,   x ∈ Ω,ui = 0,   x ∈ ∂Ω,   i = 1, 2, ..., n,  where λ is a positive parameter, Ω is a bounded domain in RN (N > 1) with smooth boundary ∂Ω. In addition, we assume that 1 < pi < N for i = 1, 2, ..., n. For λ large by applying the method of sub-super solutions the existence of a large positive weak solution is established for the above nonlinear elliptic system.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Katharina Spälti ◽  
Mark John Brandt ◽  
Marcel Zeelenberg

People often have to make trade-offs. We study three types of trade-offs: 1) "secular trade-offs" where no moral or sacred values are at stake, 2) "taboo trade-offs" where sacred values are pitted against financial gain, and 3) "tragic trade-offs" where sacred values are pitted against other sacred values. Previous research (Critcher et al., 2011; Tetlock et al., 2000) demonstrated that tragic and taboo trade-offs are not only evaluated by their outcomes, but are also evaluated based on the time it took to make the choice. We investigate two outstanding questions: 1) whether the effect of decision time differs for evaluations of decisions compared to decision makers and 2) whether moral contexts are unique in their ability to influence character evaluations through decision process information. In two experiments (total N = 1434) we find that decision time affects character evaluations, but not evaluations of the decision itself. There were no significant differences between tragic trade-offs and secular trade-offs, suggesting that the decisions structure may be more important in evaluations than moral context. Additionally, the magnitude of the effect of decision time shows us that decision time, may be of less practical use than expected. We thus urge, to take a closer examination of the processes underlying decision time and its perception.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Van Mens ◽  
Joran Lokkerbol ◽  
Richard Janssen ◽  
Robert de Lange ◽  
Bea Tiemens

BACKGROUND It remains a challenge to predict which treatment will work for which patient in mental healthcare. OBJECTIVE In this study we compare machine algorithms to predict during treatment which patients will not benefit from brief mental health treatment and present trade-offs that must be considered before an algorithm can be used in clinical practice. METHODS Using an anonymized dataset containing routine outcome monitoring data from a mental healthcare organization in the Netherlands (n = 2,655), we applied three machine learning algorithms to predict treatment outcome. The algorithms were internally validated with cross-validation on a training sample (n = 1,860) and externally validated on an unseen test sample (n = 795). RESULTS The performance of the three algorithms did not significantly differ on the test set. With a default classification cut-off at 0.5 predicted probability, the extreme gradient boosting algorithm showed the highest positive predictive value (ppv) of 0.71(0.61 – 0.77) with a sensitivity of 0.35 (0.29 – 0.41) and area under the curve of 0.78. A trade-off can be made between ppv and sensitivity by choosing different cut-off probabilities. With a cut-off at 0.63, the ppv increased to 0.87 and the sensitivity dropped to 0.17. With a cut-off of at 0.38, the ppv decreased to 0.61 and the sensitivity increased to 0.57. CONCLUSIONS Machine learning can be used to predict treatment outcomes based on routine monitoring data.This allows practitioners to choose their own trade-off between being selective and more certain versus inclusive and less certain.


Author(s):  
Steven Bernstein

This commentary discusses three challenges for the promising and ambitious research agenda outlined in the volume. First, it interrogates the volume’s attempts to differentiate political communities of legitimation, which may vary widely in composition, power, and relevance across institutions and geographies, with important implications not only for who matters, but also for what gets legitimated, and with what consequences. Second, it examines avenues to overcome possible trade-offs from gains in empirical tractability achieved through the volume’s focus on actor beliefs and strategies. One such trade-off is less attention to evolving norms and cultural factors that may underpin actors’ expectations about what legitimacy requires. Third, it addresses the challenge of theory building that can link legitimacy sources, (de)legitimation practices, audiences, and consequences of legitimacy across different types of institutions.


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