  Moment closure on general discrete structures often requires one of the
following: (i) an absence of short closed loops (zero clustering); (ii)
existence of a spatial scale; (iii) ad hoc assumptions. Algebraic methods are
presented to avoid the use of such assumptions for populations based on clumps,
and are applied to both SIR and macroparasite disease dynamics. One approach
involves a series of approximations that can be derived systematically, and
another is exact and based on Lie algebraic methods.
