Abstract

Certain defence mechanisms of phages against the immune system of their bacterial host rely on cooperation of phages. Motivated by this example we analyse invasion probabilities of cooperative parasites in moderately structured host populations. We assume that hosts occupy the vertices of a configuration model and offspring parasites move to neighbouring sites to infect new hosts. Parasites (usually) reproduce only when infecting a host simultaneously and then generate many offspring. In this regime we identify and analyse the spatial scale of the population structure at which invasion of parasites turns from being an unlikely to a highly probable event.

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