Letters in Biomathematics https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib <p><strong><em>Letters in Biomathematics</em></strong> is an open-access journal that lies at the interface of mathematics, statistics, biology, ecology, and the life sciences. The journal publishes Research, Education, and Review articles related to biological, ecological and environmental settings in a very broad sense, as well as other related topic fields.</p> en-US biomath@ilstu.edu (Olcay Akman) rcbunge@ilstu.edu (Ryan Bunge) Tue, 10 Jan 2023 08:24:37 -0800 OJS 3.1.2.0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 Welcome to Volume 10 https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/609 <p>The editorial board is pleased to introduce the tenth volume of <em>Letters in Biomathematics</em>.</p> Editorial Board Copyright (c) 2023 Letters in Biomathematics https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/609 Tue, 10 Jan 2023 08:23:07 -0800 Modeling Seasonal Malaria Transmission https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/561 <p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px;">Increasing temperatures have raised concerns over the potential effect on disease spread. Temperature is a well known factor affecting mosquito population dynamics and the development rate of the malaria parasite within the mosquito, and consequently, malaria transmission. A sinusoidal wave is commonly used to incorporate temperature effects in malaria models, however, we introduce a seasonal malaria framework that links data on temperature-dependent mosquito and parasite demographic traits to average monthly regional temperature data, without forcing a sinusoidal fit to the data. We introduce a spline methodology that maps temperature-dependent mosquito traits to time-varying model parameters. The resulting non-autonomous system of differential equations is used to study the impact of seasonality on malaria transmission dynamics and burden in a high and low malaria transmission region in Malawi. We present numerical simulations illustrating how temperature shifts alter the entomological inoculation rate and the number of malaria infections in these regions.</p> Olivia Prosper, Katharine Gurski, Miranda Teboh-Ewungkem, Angela Peace, Zhilan Feng, Margaret Reynolds, Carrie Manore Copyright (c) 2023 Letters in Biomathematics https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/561 Tue, 24 Jan 2023 07:03:37 -0800 Mathematical Analysis and Parameter Estimation of a Two-Patch Zika Model https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/529 <p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px;">In this paper, we developed a multi-patch model for the spread of Zika virus infection taking, into account direct and indirect transmissions along with vertical transmission. The model was analyzed to gain insights into the disease's spread. The model was fitted to a data set collected from two neighboring countries, Brazil and Colombia, to estimate some of its parameters and use it for calculating <em>R</em><sub>0</sub> and sensitivity analysis. Our results show that <em>R</em><sub>0</sub> is less than one in both countries, which indicates that the disease will die out. Also, our results show that direct transmission is the most important route for spreading the disease; hence, it has to gain more focus in any controlling strategy.</p> Kifah Al-Maqrashi, Fatma Al-Musalhi, Ibrahim Elmojtaba, Nasser Al-Salti Copyright (c) 2023 Letters in Biomathematics https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/529 Mon, 30 Jan 2023 12:04:24 -0800 Unidirectional Migration of Populations with Allee Effect https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/553 <p>In this note we consider two populations living on identical patches, connected by unidirectional migration, and subject to strong Allee effect. We show that by increasing the migration rate, there are more bifurcation sequences than previous works showed. In particular, the number of steady states can change from 9 (small migration) to 3 (large migration) at a single bifurcation point, or via a sequence of bifurcations with the system having 9, 7, 5, 3&nbsp;steady states or 9, 7, 9, 3&nbsp;steady states, depending on the Allee threshold. This is in contrast with the case of bidirectional migration, where the number of steady states always goes through the same bifurcation sequence of 9, 5, 3&nbsp;steady states as we increase the migration rate, regardless of the value of the Allee threshold. These results have practical implications as well in spatial ecology.</p> Gergely Röst, AmirHosein Sadeghimanesh Copyright (c) 2023 Letters in Biomathematics https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/553 Wed, 08 Feb 2023 06:50:05 -0800 Modeling the Spread of Curly Top Disease in Tomatoes https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/557 <p>Curly Top disease (CT), caused by a family of <em>curtoviruses</em>, infects a wide variety of agricultural crops. Historically, CT has caused extensive damage in tomato crops resulting in substantial economic loss for the tomato industry. Control methods for CT are scarce, and methods for predicting and assessing the scope of CT outbreaks are limited. In this paper, we formulate a stochastic model for the spread of CT in a heterogeneous environment, which consists of beet plants, the preferred hosts, and tomato plants. The model is composed of two susceptible classes and two infected classes, where the beet plants are the primary reservoir of the pathogen. We parameterize the model using data from a field experiment and assess the variability of CT incidence in tomato plants at any point in time through extensive simulations.</p> Rachel Frantz, Claudia Nischwitz, Tyson Compton, Luis Gordillo Copyright (c) 2023 Letters in Biomathematics https://lettersinbiomath.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/lib/article/view/557 Mon, 06 Mar 2023 09:23:33 -0800