Modelling evolution of virulence in populations with a distributed parasite load (Q2297278)

This paper studies a system of McKendrick-von Förster-type model of evolution in virulence. The evolution of parasite life characters, including infection growth, recovery rate, mortality and transmission rate are examined. The invasion fitness in the model is expressed by an integro-differential equation based on the adaptive dynamics framework. It is shown that possible evolutionarily singular points may be either evolutionary attractors or repellors. In an unstructured model, typically the evolution of the growth rate of the parasite inside the host does not cause an evolutionary stable strategy. But this is shown to happen in the current model and it is shown that high values of virulence can decrease the overall transmission rate. Some specific examples regarding biological trade-offs between transmission rate, parasite growth or mortality are discussed with numerical simulations.