Fig. 3: Including the effects of mosquito metabolism restraints the transmission benefits of short sporogonic cycles.
Simulations of malaria transmission assuming different sporogonic cycles (Tsp). a We measure the infection prevalence in both hosts at steady-state, i.e., at t = 1,000 days, and b the number of spreader and super-spreader mosquitoes in the population throughout the entire simulation time. Note how Plasmodium transmission grows with shorter Tsp significantly more in the control simulations (purple) than in those including mosquito metabolism (cyan) (p = 9 × 10−4 in humans and p = 1.6 × 10−3 in mosquitoes). Accordingly, the number of spreader (p = 7.48 × 10−4) and super-spreader (p = 5.8 × 10−4) mosquitoes were significantly larger in the control simulations. Difference between groups was calculated with a two sided t-test comparing the slopes of linear regressions (lines and shaded areas). ** and *** depict a p-value ≤0.01 and p-value ≤0.001, respectively. Every dot represents one of N = 15 stochastic simulations.
