A spatial model of mosquito host-seeking behavior
Autor(es): Cummins Bree, Cortez Ricardo, Foppa Ivo M, Walbeck Justin, Hyman James M
Resumo: Mosquito host-seeking behavior - heterogeneity in host distribution are important factors in predicting the transmission dynamics of mosquito-borne infections such as dengue fever, malaria, chikungunya, - West Nile virus. We develop - analyze a new mathematical model to describe the effect of spatial heterogeneity on the contact rate between mosquito vectors - hosts. The model includes odor plumes generated by spatially distributed hosts, wind velocity, - mosquito behavior based on both the prevailing wind - the odor plume. On a spatial scale of meters - a time scale of minutes, we compare the effectiveness of different plume-finding - plume-tracking strategies that mosquitoes could use to locate a host. The results show that two different models of chemotaxis are capable of producing comparable results given appropriate parameter choices - that host finding is optimized by a strategy of flying across the wind until the odor plume is intercepted. We also assess the impact of changing the level of host aggregation on mosquito host-finding success near the end of the host-seeking flight. When clusters of hosts are more tightly associated on smaller patches, the odor plume is narrower - the biting rate per host is decreased. For two host groups of unequal number but equal spatial density, the biting rate per host is lower in the group with more individuals, indicative of an attack abatement effect of host aggregation. We discuss how this approach could assist parameter choices in compartmental models that do not explicitly model the spatial arrangement of individuals - how the model could address larger spatial scales - other probability models for mosquito behavior, such as Lévy distributions.
Imprenta: PLoS Computational Biology, v. 8, n. 5, p. e1002500, 2012
Identificador do objeto digital: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002500
Descritores: Chikungunya Virus - Virus ; Chikungunya virus - Transmission ; Chikungunya virus - Chikungunya fever ; Chikungunya virus - Dengue ; Chikungunya virus - Public health
Data de publicação: 2012
