The Effects of Amplification and Dilution Agent in Transmitting Sin Nombre Virus (SNV) in Deer Mouse Population.

Lee, L. W. F.; Mohd, M. H.

Numerous studies have linked biodiversity with zoonotic disease control. However, researchers have warned against simply believing that the increase in biodiversity can reduce infectious disease in the community (i.e. the dilution effect). They proposed that the amplification effect (increase in biodiversity accompanied by an increase in disease prevalence) might sometimes occur. In this study, we formulated a deterministic model to consider the impact of an amplification or dilution agent on the SNV transmission in the deer mouse population. Bifurcation analysis was carried out to examine the combined influences of the environmental carrying capacity, the interspecific competition strength and the impact of amplification or dilution agent on the deer mouse population. Our results showed that the system with amplification agent required a higher carrying capacity or stronger interspecific strength to compensate for its amplification effect in suppressing the SNV prevalence. This observation may explain some of the empirical observations which noted the lack of reduction in SNV prevalence despite the high species diversity observed at those sites. To conclude, we highlight the importance of investigating the roles played by the other species in an assemblage to better understand their relationship with the SNV prevalence in deer mouse population.

DEER populations; COMPETITION (Biology); DILUTION; SPECIES diversity; DISEASE prevalence

Matematika, 2020, Vol 36, p85

0127-8274

Academic Journal

10.11113/matematika.v36.n2.1244