Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Infectious diseases play an important role in natural plant populations. Because disease transmission is localized in space, spatial structure at the scale of individual plants can be an important factor in determining the epidemiology and evolution of pathogens. I will present two stochastic spatial models that address basic problems in plant disease ecology. I will show how the dynamics can be approximated by systems of differential or integrodifferential equations, derived by means of moment closures or pair approximations. These approximations allow us to explore parameter space efficiently, shedding light on how spatial structure determines plant disease dynamics and evolution.