Related papers: A Law of Nature?
Ecological and evolutionary processes show various population dynamics depending on internal interactions and environmental changes. While crucial in predicting biological processes, discovering general relations for such nonlinear dynamics…
Microbes providing public goods are widespread in nature despite running the risk of being exploited by free-riders. However, the precise ecological factors supporting cooperation are still puzzling. Following recent experiments, we…
We consider the effect of network structure on the evolution of a population. Models of this kind typically consider a population of fixed size and distribution. Here we consider eco-evolutionary dynamics where population size and…
We study the biodiversity problem for resource competition systems with extinctions and self-limitation effects. Our main result establishes estimates of biodiversity in terms of the fundamental parameters of the model. We also prove the…
We consider a trait-structured population subject to mutation, birth and competition of logistic type, where the number of coexisting types may fluctuate. Applying a limit of rare mutations to this population while keeping the population…
This paper develops some mathematical models arising in behavioral sciences, particularly in psychology, which are formalized via general preferences with variable ordering structures. Our considerations are based on the recent variational…
In both natural and artificial studies, evolution is often seen as synonymous to natural selection. Individuals evolve under pressures set by environments that are either reset or do not carry over significant changes from previous…
We propose a model to characterize how a diffusing population adapts under a time periodic selection, while its environment undergoes shifts and size changes, leading to significant differences with classical results on fixed domains. After…
Finite-size fluctuations arising in the dynamics of competing populations may have dramatic influence on their fate. As an example, in this article, we investigate a model of three species which dominate each other in a cyclic manner.…
I explore the possibility that the laws of physics might be laws of inference rather than laws of nature. What sort of dynamics can one derive from well-established rules of inference? Specifically, I ask: Given relevant information…
The question as to why most higher organisms reproduce sexually has remained open despite extensive research, and has been called "the queen of problems in evolutionary biology". Theories dating back to Weismann have suggested that the key…
Nature (one's genes) and nurture (one's environment) jointly contribute to the formation and evolution of health and human capital over the life cycle. This complex interplay between genes and environment can be estimated and quantified…
Population genetics struggles to model extinction; standard models track the relative rather than absolute fitness of genotypes, while the exceptions describe only the short-term transition from imminent doom to evolutionary rescue. But…
First proposed as an empirical rule over half a century ago, the Richards growth equation has been frequently invoked in population modeling and pandemic forecasting. Central to this model is the advent of a fractional exponent $\gamma$,…
Natural ecosystems, in particular on the microbial scale, are inhabited by a large number of species. The population size of each species is affected by interactions of individuals with each other and by spatial and temporal changes in…
In evolutionary processes, population structure has a substantial effect on natural selection. Here, we analyze how motion of individuals affects constant selection in structured populations. Motion is relevant because it leads to changes…
Competition between individuals drives the evolution of whole species. Although the fittest individuals survive the longest and produce the most offspring, in some circumstances the resulting species may not be optimally fit. Here, using…
The expansion of a population into new habitat is a transient process that leaves its footprints in the genetic composition of the expanding population. How the structure of the environment shapes the population front and the evolutionary…
Economic growth and the growth of human population in the past 2,000,000 years are extensively examined. Data are found to be in a clear contradiction of the currently accepted explanations of the mechanism of growth, which revolve around…
Species populations often modify their environment as they grow. When environmental feedback operates more slowly than population growth, the system can undergo boom-bust dynamics, where the population overshoots its carrying capacity and…