Elin Falla

@ElinFalla

Plant Sciences PhD student @Cambridge_Uni. Theoretical & Computational Epidemiology. Mathematical modelling of aphid-transmitted NPT viruses. @BS_PP Ambassador

Cambridge, England Joined July 2022

361 Following 300 Followers 83 Posts

Latest posts 5

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Elin Falla @ElinFalla Oct 9, 2024

My first first-author paper is out in @PLOSCompBiol! Read about why including aphid vector behavior is important for modelling NPT plant virus transmission, in particular when the virus is manipulating plant host phenotype: journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/a…

journals.plos.org Why aphid virus retention needs more attention: Modelling aphid behaviour and virus manipulation in... Author summary Plant viruses can cause devastating disease epidemics. Non-persistently transmitted viruses are almost always vectored (transmitted between plants) by aphids. Experiments show virus...

Elin Falla @ElinFalla Oct 22

Third first-author paper out from my PhD! Co-author @nikcunniffe. Here we show for the first time that plant virus manipulative traits could have evolved to encourage virus spread on larger spatial/temporal scales through vector emigration. Read it here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ecol…

Elin Falla @ElinFalla Jun 19

My second first-author paper from my PhD is out! (co-author @nikcunniffe) Read about how planting a companion crop alongside a main crop confers disease control benefits for aphid-transmitted plant viruses, by changing aphid behaviour: lnkd.in/ePiHiPNY

A figure from the paper, with three plots. The left plot shows the proportion of infected plants over time, showing that having trap (attractive) or repellent companion plants decreases disease incidence compared to basic companions or no control. The centre plot is number of uni-infective aphids over time, showing how the number of aphids is decreased for repellent companions, but increased for trap companions. The right plot is the number of infective aphids over time, showing that all companion plant options reduce the number of infective aphids over time.

Elin Falla @ElinFalla Jan 14

I'm incredibly pleased to say I have passed my PhD viva, with no corrections required.

I am very thankful to many people, particularly my supervisor @nikcunniffe and my partner, friends and family who have supported me throughout.

Thanks also to @CaiusCollege and @camplantsci

Screenshot of the front page of my PhD thesis, titled "Understanding plant virus manipulation of their hosts: Mathematical modelling of non-persistent viruses and their aphid vectors in plant disease epidemics"

Elin Falla @ElinFalla Jun 5, 2025

The preprint of my second first-author paper (with
@nikcunniffe) is out! Read to find out how planting virus-resistant companion plants can control the spread of non-persistently transmitted plant viruses: cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.31220/a…

@plantsci @CaiusCollege @Cambridge_SBS

Diagram of the compartments in my mathematical disease model and the rates at which individuals flow between them. Compartments are healthy plants, infected plants, resistant (companion plants), un-infective aphids and infective aphids.