Séance Séminaire

Séminaire des Doctorant·e·s

Mathematical and numerical analysis of models in evolutionary epidemiology

We consider several models of propagation arising in evolutionary epidemiology. We aim at performing a rigorous mathematical analysis leading to new biological insights. At first we investigate the spread of an epidemic in a population of homogeneously distributed hosts on a straight line. An underlying mutation process can shift the virulence of the pathogen between two values, causing an interaction between epidemiology and evolution. We study the propagation speed of the epidemic and the influence of some biologically relevant quantities, like the effects of stochasticity caused by the hosts' finite population size (numerical explorations), on this speed. In a second part we take into account a periodic heterogeneity in the hosts' population and study the propagation speed and the existence of pulsating fronts for the associated (non-cooperative) reaction-diffusion system. Finally, we consider a model in which the pathogen is allowed to shift between a large number of different phenotypes, and construct possibly singular traveling waves for the associated nonlocal equation, thus modelling concentration on an optimal trait.