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A Priori Prediction Of Disease Invasion Dynamics In A Novel Environment, Colin A. Russell, David L. Smith, Lance A. Waller, James E. Childs, Leslie A. Real

Other Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease

Directly transmitted infectious diseases spread through wildlife populations as travelling waves away from the sites of original introduction. These waves often become distorted through their interaction with environmental and population heterogeneities and by long-distance translocation of infected individuals. Accurate a priori predictions of travelling waves of infection depend upon understanding and quantifying these distorting factors. We assess the effects of anisotropies arising from the orientation of rivers in relation to the direction of disease-front propagation and the damming effect of mountains on disease movement in natural populations. The model successfully predicts the local and large-scale prevaccination spread of raccoon rabies …