Figure 5.

Overview of conclusions: Heterogeneous pathogen events. Pathogen populations (A–D) with stochastically varying phenotypes enter various biotic and abiotic environments. Extreme environments kill pathogens in environment (A), while favorable conditions support vigorous pathogen growth in the environment (D). Intermediate environments support pathogen survival (B) or moderate growth (C). Various surviving pathogen subsets emerging from the various events result in risk variation in an often heterogeneous host population whose susceptibilities vary leading to stochasticity in disease risk.