Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems
eBook - PDF

Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems

About this book

How complex systems theory sheds new light on the adaptive dynamics of viral populations

Viruses are everywhere, infecting all sorts of living organisms, from the tiniest bacteria to the largest mammals. Many are harmful parasites, but viruses also play a major role as drivers of our evolution as a species and are essential regulators of the composition and complexity of ecosystems on a global scale. This concise book draws on complex systems theory to provide a fresh look at viral origins, populations, and evolution, and the coevolutionary dynamics of viruses and their hosts.

New viruses continue to emerge that threaten people, crops, and farm animals. Viruses constantly evade our immune systems, and antiviral therapies and vaccination campaigns can be powerless against them. These unique characteristics of virus biology are a consequence of their tremendous evolutionary potential, which enables viruses to quickly adapt to any environmental challenge. Ricard Solé and Santiago Elena present a unified framework for understanding viruses as complex adaptive systems. They show how the application of complex systems theory to viral dynamics has provided new insights into the development of AIDS in patients infected with HIV-1, the emergence of new antigenic variants of the influenza A virus, and other cutting-edge advances.

Essential reading for biologists, physicists, and mathematicians interested in complexity, Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems also extends the analogy of viruses to the evolution of other replicators such as computer viruses, cancer, and languages.

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Yes, you can access Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems by Ricard Solé,Santiago F. Elena in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Biology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Figure
1.1.
Large
and
small
universes.
The
left
picture
is
an
image
from
the
Hubble
Deep
Field
Team
and
NASA.
The
right
picture
involves
a
very
small,
living
system,
namely
the
small-scale
ecology
contained
in
a
sea
drop
of
water,
where
marine
viruses,
bacteria,
and
protists
appear
as
small,
medium,
and
large
bright
spots,
respectively.
Adapted
from
Fuhrman
(2009).

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. CONTENTS
  5. Preface
  6. 1. The Virosphere
  7. 2. Alive or Dead?
  8. 3. Landscapes
  9. 4. Virus Dynamics and Arms Races
  10. 5. Epidemics
  11. 6. Emergent Viruses
  12. 7. Origins
  13. 8. Computer Viruses and Beyond
  14. References
  15. Index