Mini-symposium 1

The ecological dynamics of insect infections

Viral, bacterial, protozoan and other infectious agents that are transmitted by insects form an important set of epidemiological systems that affect human health and wellbeing. Examples include mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue, which are major burdens on public health, and endosymbiotic bacterial infections which can increase the fitness and abundance of important crop pests such as the white fly. This large and diverse range of epidemiological systems present a common challenge to the development of strategies for control and eradication: they require an understanding of the ecological dynamics of the insect populations that host and spread the infection. This symposium will explore mathematical modelling approaches that generate new understanding of interactions between the ecological dynamics of insect populations and the infections that they transmit.

Invited speakers

Florence Débarre: Spatial structure and the evolution of altruistic host defence strategies.

Thomas Churcher: The importance of parasite density in malaria transmission.

Organisers

Penelope Hancock (Oxford, UK) and Ace North (Oxford, UK).