SPATIAL-ANALYSIS OF VECTOR-BORNE DISEASE - A 4-SPECIES MODEL

Disease can influence a host population's dynamics directly or indirec tly through effects on the host's interactions with competitors and ex ploiters. We present a stochastic, spatially explicit model for the ep idemiological landscape of a vector-borne disease. Two host species, o f unequal competitive strength, are attacked by a selective parasite; the parasite serves as a vector for a pathogen. We emphasize the impor tance of the ecological stencil, i.e. the local area where ecological interactions govern a site's species composition. We demonstrate analy tically that varying the size of the ecological stencil critically aff ects the dynamics of the host densities and the potential equilibrium configuration of the system. We point out how parallel computing can e fficiently employ the geometry of the stencil's local transitions to p redict large-scale spatio-temporal patterns of the model community.