Related papers: Asymmetric Mutualism in Two- and Three-Dimensional…
Mutualistic interactions benefit both partners, promoting coexistence and genetic diversity. Spatial structure can promote cooperation, but spatial expansions may also make it hard for mutualistic partners to stay together, since genetic…
Recent microbial experiments suggest that enhanced genetic drift at the frontier of a two-dimensional range expansion can cause genetic sectoring patterns with fractal domain boundaries. Here, we propose and analyze a simple model of…
When a biological population expands into new territory, genetic drift develops an enormous influence on evolution at the propagating front. In such range expansion processes, fluctuations in allele frequencies occur through stochastic…
Mutualistic interactions, where individuals from different species can benefit from each other, are widespread across ecosystems. This study develops a general deterministic model of mutualism involving two populations, assuming that…
An organism that is newly introduced into an existing population has a survival probability that is dependent on both the population density of its environment and the competition it experiences with the members of that population.…
Theory predicts rapid genetic drift during invasions, yet many expanding populations maintain high genetic diversity. We find that genetic drift is dramatically suppressed when dispersal rates increase with the population density because…
We study the genetic interfaces between two species of an expanding colony that consists of individual microorganisms that reproduce and undergo diffusion, both at the frontier and in the interior. Within the bulk of the colony, the genetic…
Competition between random genetic drift and natural selection plays a central role in evolution: Whereas non-beneficial mutations often prevail in small populations by chance, mutations that sweep through large populations typically confer…
We consider the dynamics of spatially-distributed, diffusing populations of organisms with antagonistic interactions. These interactions are found on many length scales, ranging from kilometer-scale animal range dynamics with selection…
We investigate the effect of spatial range expansions on the evolution of fitness when beneficial and deleterious mutations co-segregate. We perform individual-based simulations of a uniform linear habitat and complement them with…
Environmental heterogeneity can drive genetic heterogeneity in expanding populations; mutant strains may emerge that trade overall growth rate for an improved ability to survive in patches that are hostile to the wild type. This…
Species introductions promote secondary contacts between taxa with long histories of allopatric divergence. Anthropogenic contact zones thus offer valuable contrasts to speciation studies in natural systems where past spatial isolations may…
The exchange of diffusive metabolites is known to control the spatial patterns formed by microbial populations, as revealed by recent studies in the laboratory. However, the matrices used, such as agarose pads, lack the structured geometry…
Cooperative mutualism is a major force driving evolution and sustaining ecosystems. Although the importance of spatial degrees of freedom and number fluctuations is well-known, their effects on mutualism are not fully understood. With range…
Population expansions trigger many biomedical and ecological transitions, from tumor growth to invasions of non-native species. Although population spreading often selects for more invasive phenotypes, we show that this outcome is far from…
Range expansion is a universal process in biological systems, and therefore plays a part in biological evolution. Using a quantitative individual-based method based on the stochastic process, we identify that enhancing the inherent…
Early theoretical work revealed that the simplest class of autocatalytic cycles, known as hypercycles, provide an elegant framework for understanding the evolution of mutualism. Furthermore, hypercycles are highly susceptible to parasites,…
Relations among species in ecosystems can be represented by complex networks where both negative (competition) and positive (mutualism) interactions are concurrently present. Recently, it has been shown that many ecosystems can be cast into…
If deleterious mutations near a fitness maximum in a spatially distributed population are sufficiently frequent or detrimental, the population can undergo a fitness collapse, similarly to the Muller's ratchet effect in well-mixed…
Range expansion and range shifts are crucial population responses to climate change. Genetic consequences are not well understood but are clearly coupled to ecological dynamics that, in turn, are driven by shifting climate conditions. We…