<i>Wolbachia</i> Invasion Dynamics by Integrodifference Equations

Abstract

Releasing mosquitoes infected with the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia to invade and replace the wild populations can effectively interrupt dengue transmission. Recently, a reasonable discrete competitive non-spatial model was developed and the conditions for the successful invasion of Wolbachia were given. However, Wolbachia propagation is a matter of spatial dynamics. In this paper, we introduce a dispersal kernel and establish integrodifference equations, a class of discrete-time spatial diffusion systems that have recently gained much attention as an important tool for spatial ecology. We analyzed the spatial model by average dispersal success approximation to find the criteria for the successful spread of Wolbachia, and then compared it with the non-spatial model to discuss the effect of spatial parameters.

Keywords

• <i>Wolbachia</i> invasion
• discrete competition
• integrodifference equations
• spatial ecology
• the average dispersal success