Network for Biological Invasions and Dispersal Research

MITACS Seminar at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton

Monday, 16 March, 2009,

Julien Arino

of the University of Manitoba

will speak on

Using metapopulations to describe the spatio-temporal spread of infectious diseases

3:30 PM, Tilley 404, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton

Abstract: Metapopulation models consider the dynamics of "populations of populations". They are used to describe situations where a spatial domain can be decomposed into subdomains called patches, within which the populations are relatively homogeneous. In each patch, a dynamical system describes the interactions between the various species present. The patches are then coupled to each other to describe the movements of individuals between them.

I will present the general framework of metapopulations and give examples where they have been applied. I will then discuss some mathematical aspects of the models: the resulting systems are large systems of (usually) ordinary differential equations embedded in digraphs, and pose specific problems. In the second part of the talk, I will specialize the models to the description of the spatio-temporal spread of infectious diseases, where the "species" are the various states that an individual in an epidemic model can be in (for example, susceptible, infectious, recovered..). Some applications will be shown.