Meeting Details

Title: Non-local properties in the evolution of spatially-structured populations Seminar on Probability and its Application Timothy Reluga, PSU Under the simplest conditions, evolutionary theory predicts that natural selections drives pathogens toward equilibrium values of their discounted reproduction ratios, $\mathcal{R}_d$. In the absences of biological constraints, these equilibria correspond to maximization of the transmission rate and minimization of their removal rate. However, many authors have observed that correlations in the biological relationship between transmission and removal can lead to equilibria with intermediate values of these parameters. These results are typically derived under strong-mixing assumptions. Surprising computational work on cellular-automata models has further indicated that even in the absence of biological correlations, spatial structure in disease transmission patterns can be sufficient to alter pathogen evolution. In this talk, I'll describe some of my lab's recent and ongoing research into this question that was undertaken by a visiting undergraduate student last summer.