Spatial dynamics of synergistic coinfection in rock-paper-scissors models

Abstract

We investigate the spatial dynamics of two disease epidemics reaching a three-species cyclic model. Regardless of their species, all individuals are susceptible to being infected with two different pathogens, which spread through person-to-person contact. The occurrence of coinfection leads to a synergistic increase in the risk of hosts dying due to complications from either disease. Our stochastic simulations show that departed areas inhabited by hosts of a single pathogen arise from random initial conditions. The single-disease spatial domains are bordered by interfaces of coinfected hosts whose dynamics are curvature-driven. Our findings show that the coarsening dynamics of the interface network are controlled by the fluctuations of coinfection waves invading the single-disease territories. As the coinfection mortality grows, the dynamics of the interface network attain the scaling regime. We discover that organisms' infection risk is maximised if the coinfection increases the death due to disease in $30\%$, and minimised as the network dynamics reach the scaling regime, with species populations being maximum. Our conclusions may help ecologists understand the dynamics of epidemics and their impact on the stability of ecosystems.