Paper detail

A stochastic model for the evolution of the influenza virus

Consider a birth and death chain to model the number of types of a given virus. Each type gives birth to a new type at rate $λ$ and dies at rate 1. Each type is also assigned a fitness. When a death occurs either the least fit type dies (with probability $1-r$) or we kill a type at random (with probability $r$). We show that this random killing has a large effect (for any $r>0$) on the behavior of the model when $λ<1$. The behavior of the model with $r>0$ and $λ<1$ is consistent with features of the phylogenetic tree of influenza.