If cold (flu) cases were mapped geographically over time, would you see the disease move in continuous waves or pop up in locations sporadically?
In: Mathematics
As a biogeographer (who specializes in the distribution of forests not bacteria) my thought is *both*.
That is, a large-scale pattern of expanding territory of most species would be characterized by a gradual wave-like migration with sporadic long-range jumps that inspire waves from those points of colonization.
With plants and animals and such their populations are limited by the environment, their available habitat. With bacteria transmitted by humans the best habitat would be people, so the flu would find good habitat in larger interconnected populations (eg cities).
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