RESEARCH ARTICLE Spatial Heterogeneity, Host Movement and Mosquito-Borne Disease Transmission

Mosquito-borne diseases are a global health priority disproportionately affecting low-in-come populations in tropical and sub-tropical countries. These pathogens live in mosqui-toes and hosts that interact in spatially heterogeneous environments where hosts move between regions of varying transmission intensity. Although there is increasing interest in the implications of spatial processes for mosquito-borne disease dynamics, most of our un-derstanding derives from models that assume spatially homogeneous transmission. Spatial variation in contact rates can influence transmission and the risk of epidemics, yet the inter-action between spatial heterogeneity and movement of hosts remains relatively unexplored. Here we explore, analytically and through numerical simulations, how human mobility con-nects spatially heterogeneous mosquito populations, thereby influencing disease persis-tence (determined by the basic reproduction number R0), prevalence and their relationship. We show that, when local transmission rates are highly heterogeneous, R0 declines asymp-totically as human mobility increases, but infection prevalence peaks at low to intermediate rates of movement and decreases asymptotically after this peak. Movement can reduc