Keeping the kids at home can limit the persistence of contagious pathogens in social animals

Lucile Marescot; Mathias Franz; Sarah Benhaiem; Heribert Hofer; Marion East; Stephanie Kramer-Schadt

(3) Reproduction 257 We assumed density-dependent reproduction. Reproduction only occurred if the group size 258 was below the carrying capacity of groups, i.e. the Group.size threshold (Table 1) . If 259 reproduction occurred, then every week, each adult which was older than Age-repro gave birth 260 to a single offspring with a probability fage. All individuals were born as susceptible, 261 independently of the infection status of their parent; hence, we did not consider vertical 262 transmission or immunity due to the transmission of (maternal) antibodies to offspring 263 (through e.g. milk) for a short period after birth. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint reproductive individuals fage, as well as group-size (Group.size) and the contact ratio π (Table 281 1). We also considered variation in the simulation values for the parameters characterizing The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint groups, which differed in terms of difference in epidemic fade-out probabilities with a 306 minimum deviance of the standard deviation of the epidemic fade-out in those groups.