Discrete stochastic marine metapopulation disease model

Some marine microparasitic pathogens can survive several months outside the host in the water column to make contact with hosts or to be absorbed or filtered by hosts. Once inside, pathogens invade the host if they find suitable conditions for reproduction within the host. This transmission from the environment occurs via pathogens released from infected animals and dead infected animals. Some recent modeling studies concentrated on the disease dynamic imposed by this complex interaction between population and water column at the host-pathogen level in single populations. However, only when a marine disease can be understood at the metapopulation scale effective approaches to management will become routinely achievable. In this paper we explore the disease dynamics at the metapopulation applying a stochastic version. The discrete-time disease model in this paper investigates both spatial and temporal dynamics of hosts and waterborne pathogens in a three patch system. This metapopulation with a patch providing infective particles and susceptible and infected individuals by dispersal tries to imitate the effect of current forces in the ocean on the passive dispersal of organisms. The model detects system behaviors that are not present in single population continuous-time and deterministic models.