Related papers: Muller's ratchet clicks in finite time
We study the evolutionary dynamics of an asexual population of nonmutators and mutators on a class of epistatic fitness landscapes. We consider the situation in which all mutations are deleterious and mutators are produced from nonmutators…
When beneficial mutations are rare, they accumulate by a series of selective sweeps. But when they are common, many beneficial mutations will occur before any can fix, so there will be many different mutant lineages in the population…
Competition between independently arising beneficial mutations is enhanced in spatial populations due to the linear rather than exponential growth of clones. Recent theoretical studies have pointed out that the resulting fitness dynamics is…
We find that the hypothesis made by Jan, Stauffer and Moseley [Theory in Biosc., 119, 166 (2000)] for the evolution of sex, namely a strategy devised to escape extinction due to too many deleterious mutations, is sufficient but not…
In this paper, we investigate a generalised model of $N$ particles undergoing second-order non-local interactions on a lattice. Our results have applications across many research areas, including the modelling of migration, information…
Motivated by present activities in (statistical) physics directed towards biological evolution, we review the interplay of three evolutionary forces: mutation, selection, and genetic drift. The review addresses itself to physicists and…
We consider the accumulation of beneficial and deleterious mutations in large asexual populations. The rate of adaptation is affected by the total mutation rate, proportion of beneficial mutations and population size $N$. We show that…
Under constant selection, each trait has a fixed fitness, and small mutation rates allow populations to efficiently exploit the optimal trait. Therefore it is reasonable to expect mutation rates will evolve downwards. However, we find this…
Most new mutations are deleterious and are eventually eliminated by natural selection. But in an adapting population, the rapid amplification of beneficial mutations can hinder the removal of deleterious variants in nearby regions of the…
Linked beneficial and deleterious mutations are known to decrease the fixation probability of a favorable mutation in large asexual populations. While the hindering effect of strongly deleterious mutations on adaptive evolution has been…
Although mutations drive the evolutionary process, the rates at which the mutations occur are themselves subject to evolutionary forces. Our purpose here is to understand the role of selection and random genetic drift in the evolution of…
I study a population model in which the reproduction rate lambda is inherited with mutation, favoring fast reproducers in the short term, but conflicting with a process that eliminates agglomerations of individuals. The model is a variant…
A mutator is an allele that increases the mutation rate throughout the genome by disrupting some aspect of DNA replication or repair. Mutators that increase the mutation rate by the order of 100 fold have been observed to spontaneously…
The adaptation of large asexual populations is hampered by the competition between independently arising beneficial mutations in different individuals, which is known as clonal interference. Fisher and Muller proposed that recombination…
We study the competition between several advantageous mutants in an asexual population (clonal interference) as a function of the time between the appearance of the mutants, their selective advantages, and the rate of deleterious mutations.…
In this paper, we study the asymptotic (large time) behavior of a selection-mutation-competition model for a population structured with respect to a phenotypic trait, when the rate of mutation is very small. We assume that the reproduction…
We consider a model of asexually reproducing individuals. The birth and death rates of the individuals are affected by a fitness parameter. The rate of mutations that cause the fitnesses to change is proportional to the population size, N.…
We generalize the standard Penna bit-string model of biological ageing by assuming that each deleterious mutation diminishes the survival probability in every time interval by a small percentage. This effect is added to the usual lethal but…
Sexually reproducing populations with small number of individuals may go extinct by stochastic fluctuations in sex determination, causing all their members to become male or female in a generation. In this work we calculate the time to…
In large populations, multiple beneficial mutations may be simultaneously spreading. In asexual populations, these mutations must either arise on the same background or compete against each other. In sexual populations, recombination can…