Article

Superspreaders increase deleterious mutant burden and can accelerate the evolution of complex traits in pathogens

2026-04-28

Abstract excerpt

Degree heterogeneity in contact networks is known to accelerate the spread of infectious diseases through the presence of superspreaders, but its evolutionary consequences remain less understood. Here we study how network heterogeneity shapes the fate of competing pathogen strains in a stochastic susceptible–infected–susceptible framework. We show that heterogeneous networks act as strong suppressors of selection:...

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Identifiers and source

Literature Corpus work: ff52dd34-b207-5fb2-935c-c500f7597d90
DOI: 10.64898/2026.04.24.720758

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