title: Paradoxical effects of coupling infectious livestock populations and imposing transport restrictions.
abstract: Spatial heterogeneity of a host population of mobile agents has been shown to be a crucial determinant of many aspects of disease dynamics, ranging from the proliferation of diseases to their persistence and to vaccination strategies. In addition, the importance of regional and structural differences grows in our modern world. Little is known, though, about the consequences when traits of a disease vary regionally. In this paper, we study the effect of a spatially varying per capita infection rate on the behaviour of livestock diseases. We show that the prevalence of an infectious livestock disease in a community of animals can paradoxically decrease owing to transport connections to other communities in which the risk of infection is higher. We study the consequences for the design of livestock transportation restriction measures and establish exact criteria to discriminate those connections that increase the level of infection in the community from those that decrease it.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen 37077, Germany.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lamouroux
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen 37077, Germany Computational Physics, IfB, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8093, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nagler
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen 37077, Germany.
authors.forename: Theo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Geisel
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen 37077, Germany eule@nld.ds.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eule
mesh_terms: D000820:Animal Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000662:veterinary*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000662:veterinary*; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious / Q000662:veterinary; D058751:Livestock; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014186:Transportation
keywords: infectious diseases; population dynamics; theoretical ecology; transport restrictions