Related papers: Fluctuation induces evolutionary branching in a mo…
We propose a generic model of eco-systems, with a {\it hierarchical} food web structure. In our computer simulations we let the eco-system evolve continuously for so long that that we can monitor extinctions as well as speciations over…
Bacteriophage-bacteria interactions are central to microbial ecology, influencing evolution, biogeochemical cycles, and pathogen behavior. Most theoretical models assume static environments and passive bacterial hosts, neglecting the joint…
Explaining biodiversity is a fundamental issue in ecology. A long-standing puzzle lies in the paradox of the plankton: many species of plankton feeding on a limited variety of resources coexist, apparently flouting the competitive exclusion…
Non-uniform rates of morphological evolution and evolutionary increases in organismal complexity, captured in metaphors like "adaptive zones", "punctuated equilibrium" and "blunderbuss patterns", require more elaborate explanations than a…
Pathogen-mediated competition, through which an invasive species carrying and transmitting a pathogen can be a superior competitor to a more vulnerable resident species, is one of the principle driving forces influencing biodiversity in…
Motivated by the results of recent laboratory experiments (Yoshida et al. Nature, 424, 303-306 (2003)) as well as many earlier field observations that evolutionary changes can take place in ecosystems over relatively short ecological time…
The observation that phenotypic variability is ubiquitous in isogenic populations has led to a multitude of experimental and theoretical studies seeking to probe the causes and consequences of this variability. Whether it be in the context…
We present a two-species population model in a well-mixed environment where the dynamics involves, in addition to birth and death, changes due to environmental factors and inter-species interactions. The novel dynamical components are…
Evolutionary dynamics and patterns of molecular evolution are strongly influenced by selection on linked regions of the genome, but our quantitative understanding of these effects remains incomplete. Recent work has focused on predicting…
Complex evolving systems such as the biosphere, ecosystems and societies exhibit sudden collapses, for reasons that are only partially understood. Here we study this phenomenon using a mathematical model of a system that evolves under…
Biological organisms have to cope with stochastic variations in both the external environment and the internal population dynamics. Theoretical studies and laboratory experiments suggest that population diversification could be an effective…
We propose a minimal model of the dynamics of diversity -- replicator equations with extinction, invasion and mutation. We numerically study the behavior of this simple model and show that it displays completely different behavior from the…
Organisms adapt to fluctuating environments by regulating their dynamics, and by adjusting their phenotypes to environmental changes. We model population growth using multitype branching processes in random environments, where the offspring…
The main topic of this thesis is the analysis of evolution equations reflecting issues in ecology and population dynamics. In mathematical modelling, the impact of environmental elements and the interaction between species is read into the…
We wish to formally test for changes in the taxonomic diversity of a community, especially in the presence of high latent diversity. Drawing on the meta-analysis literature, we construct a model for diversity that accounts for covariate…
Character evolution that affects ecological community interactions often occurs contemporaneously with temporal changes in population size, potentially altering the very nature of those dynamics. Such eco-evolutionary processes may be most…
We investigate how initial and boundary conditions influence the competition dynamics and outcome in dispersal-structured populations. The study is carried out through numerical modeling of the heterogeneous Brownian bugs model, in which…
Community assembly is studied using individual-based multispecies models. The models have stochastic population dynamics with mutation, migration, and extinction of species. Mutants appear as a result of mutation of the resident species,…
We present numerical results based on a simplified ecological system in evolution, showing features of extinction similar to that claimed for the biosystem on Earth. In the model each species consists of a population in interaction with the…
We study a model of a multi-species ecosystem described by Lotka-Volterra-like equations. Interactions among species form a network whose evolution is determined by the dynamics of the model. Numerical simulations show power-law…