Larval ecology

ability of computational tools to store and retrieve biological data has facilitated wide access to these data, of many such attempts to use the existing mathematical theory of networks to understand epidemiological pro-cesses in general, and HIV in particular. In human sexual contact networks, most individuals have just one sexual partner, whereas a small class of individuals might have tens or hundreds of partners per year. The frequency distribution of sexual partners typically follows a ‘power-law ’ distribution (see Glossary). The specific structure of the network helps us to not only trace the origin and cause of diseases, but also predict the potential success of interventions, such as quarantine and vaccination [5,6]. In particular, the power-law distribution common to sexual contact networks allows the spread of diseases with extremely low transmission rates [7–11], but high levels of clustering (Box 1) can reduce the rate of Glossary two nodes each effect the other. Review TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution Vol.20 No.6 June 2005thinking to the spread of the AIDS epidemic was the firstimmuno-suppressed adults, began to appear in hospital