@article{Population:1571,
      recid = {1571},
      author = {Martinez Vargas, Pamela},
      title = {Strain Diversity and the Population Dynamics of Rotavirus},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2017-12},
      pages = {71},
      abstract = {The ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that influence  the population dynamics of infectious diseases remain an  active area of research of relevance to fundamental biology  and applied public health. Here, I have considered  rotavirus as a study system to better understand the effect  of environmental drivers on transmission dynamics, and  strain competition in the context of evolution on pathogen  diversity. I first studied the effect of climate  variability on rotavirus population dynamics in a  heterogeneous urban landscape, and compared to rural ones  in a developing country, Bangladesh. To carry out this  project, I implemented a process-based model of pathogen  spread in the core and periphery of Dhaka, and relied on  surveillance data to address the role of the monsoons and  how this varied in different parts of the city. These  results show that the inclusion of spatial information is  essential to better understand the seasonality and  inter-annual variation of the disease transmission and its  response to climate anomalies. I then extended the  epidemiological model to consider different serotypes and  to interrogate serotype-specific surveillance data to  understand the role of host immunity on rotavirus  diversity. The main results of this work reveal a strong  effect of generalized immunity on shaping this diversity.  Lastly, I developed a theoretical approach to understand  the effect of host-pathogen heterogeneity on pathogen  diversity in the context of different immune responses.  These results emphasize the importance of considering two  kinds of phenotypic differences underlying also distinct  kinds of competition when studying pathogen diversity,  namely absolute differences that allow viruses to exploit  different hosts (as resources), and frequency-dependent  differences related to antigenic traits and resulting  immunity. In particular, I emphasized the recognition that  these two trait axes may not be independent. Improvements  of current vaccines of limited efficiency in the developing  world should result from an increased understanding of  ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that shape rotavirus  diversity.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1571},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1571},
}