The solution of a recursive sequence arising from a combinatorial problem in botanical epidemiology

Abstract

One of the central problems in botanical epidemiology is whether disease spreads within crops in a regular pattern or follows a random process. In this paper, we consider a row of n plants in which m are infected. We then develop a rigorous mathematical approach to investigate the total number of ways to obtain k isolated individuals among m infected plants. We give a recurrence relation in three parameters that describes the problem, then we find a closed form solution, and give two different approaches to tackle the proof. Finally, we find interesting formulas for the expectation and variance of the random variable that represents the number of infected and isolated plants.