Mosquito metabolism shapes life-history strategies of Plasmodium parasites

This project simulates mosquito population dynamics and malaria transmission as described in the research paper "Mosquito metabolism shapes Plasmodium life-history traits". The modelling framework consists of an individual-based model with an extensive description of mosquito biology. Specifically, this is the first model that includes a description of nutrient allocation inside female mosquitoes and their interactions with growing malaria parasites.

Description of the data and file structure

The data from our simulations is organized with variations based on different initial Tsp values and whether the model excluded (control) or included mosquito metabolism (metabolism).

The directories are organized as follows:

1. Control simulations
You will find three directories named "control_11", "control_12", and "control_13", where all results from the simulations excluding mosquito metabolism (control model), and with different starting conditions for Tsp, i.e., Tsp(0) = 11 - 13 days.

2. Metabolism simulations
Similarly, you will find three directories named "metabolism_11", "metabolism_12", "metabolism_13", where results from simulations including the description of mosquito metabolism are stored.

3. Evolutionary simulations
You will find four directories that follow a structure for both conditions (control and metabolism) and initial Tsp values (Tsp(0))
"condition_evo_TSP(0)".

In every directory, you will find a subdirectory with all the simulated and analyzed data. Every simulation produces the following files:

femaleParameters.csv
humanParameters.csv
IncubationPeriod.csv
larvaParameters.csv
PopulationSize.csv
TransmissionProfileMosquitoes.csv

Code/Software

The individual-based model was implemented in the C++ programming language. All analysis were performed using R version 3.5.
The code is available under: https://gitlab.mpcdf.mpg.de/vectorbiology/mosquito_metabolism/vectorbornemodel_release