Two-strain ecoepidemic systems: the obligated mutualism case

TL;DR

This paper models a mutualistic ecosystem with two transmissible diseases affecting one population, revealing that coexistence of the diseases is unlikely and that the ecosystem can collapse under certain conditions, with novel basin of attraction analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a new model for obligated mutualism with dual disease transmission and provides analytical insights into ecosystem stability and disease coexistence.

Findings

Coexistence of the two disease strains is not possible.

Ecosystem collapse can occur under unfavorable conditions.

Novel techniques are used to compute basin of attraction of the origin.

Abstract

We present a model for obligated mutualistic associations, in which two transmissible diseases are allowed to infect just one population. As the general model proves too hard to be fully analytically investigated, some special cases are analysed. Among our findings, the coexistence of the two strains does not appear possible, under the model assumptions. Furthermore, in particularly unfavorable circumstances the ecosystem may disappear. In this respect, an accurate computation of the basin of attraction of the origin is provided using novel techniques. For this obligated mutualistic system the presence of the diseases appears to be less relevant than in many other circumstances in ecoepidemiology, including also the case of facultative symbiotic associations.