Related papers: Chaos and Unpredictability in Evolution
Intraspecific trait variation has been increasingly recognized as an important factor in determining species interaction and diversity. Eco-evolutionary models have studied the distribution of trait values within a population that changes…
Much of our understanding of ecological and evolutionary mechanisms derives from analysis of low-dimensional models: with few interacting species, or few axes defining "fitness". It is not always clear to what extent the intuition derived…
Chaos is omnipresent in nature, and its understanding provides enormous social and economic benefits. However, the unpredictability of chaotic systems is a textbook concept due to their sensitivity to initial conditions, aperiodic behavior,…
Nearly all nontrivial real-world systems are nonlinear dynamical systems. Chaos describes certain nonlinear dynamical systems that have a very sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Chaotic systems are always deterministic and may be…
Complex chaotic dynamics, seen in natural and industrial systems like turbulent flows and weather patterns, often span vast spatial domains with interactions across scales. Accurately capturing these features requires a high-dimensional…
The possibility that evolutionary forces -- together with a few fundamental factors such as thermodynamic constraints, specific computational features enabling information processing, and ecological processes -- might constrain the logic of…
Non-deterministic chaos is a form of low-dimensional dynamics which is characterized by the existence of a countable set of {\em sensitive decision points} (SDP's). Away from these points, the dynamics is well-behaved. Near these points,…
Understanding how stochastic and non-linear deterministic processes interact is a major challenge in population dynamics theory. After a short review, we introduce a stochastic individual-centered particle model to describe the evolution in…
Interpretation of empirical results based on a taxa's lifetime distribution shows apparently conflicting results. Species' lifetime is reported to be exponentially distributed, whereas higher order taxa, such as families or genera, follow a…
Phenotype of biological systems needs to be robust against mutation in order to sustain themselves between generations. On the other hand, phenotype of an individual also needs to be robust against fluctuations of both internal and external…
Understanding how genotypes map onto phenotypes, fitness, and eventually organisms is arguably the next major missing piece in a fully predictive theory of evolution. We refer to this generally as the problem of the genotype-phenotype map.…
Dynamical chaos is a term that encompasses a wide range of nonlinear phenomena such as turbulence, neuronal avalanches, weather patterns, and many others. However, despite much work in the field of chaos, its fundamental physical origin…
We propose a mechanism which produces periodic variations of the degree of predictability in dynamical systems. It is shown that even in the absence of noise when the control parameter changes periodically in time, below and above the…
Biological information processing is often carried out by complex networks of interconnected dynamical units. A basic question about such networks is that of reliability: if the same signal is presented many times with the network in…
Laboratory experiments with bacterial colonies, under well-controlled conditions often lead to evolutionary diversification, where at least two ecotypes emerge from an initially monomorphic population. Empirical evidence suggests that such…
Existing theories for the evolution of aging and death treat senescence as a side-effect of strong selection for fertility. These theories are well-developed mathematically, but fit poorly with emerging experimental data. The data suggest…
Whether or not biodiversity dynamics tend toward stable equilibria remains an unsolved question in ecology and evolution with important implications for our understanding of diversity and its conservation. Phylo/population genetic models…
Self-arrangement of individuals into spatial patterns often accompanies and promotes species diversity in ecological systems. Here, we investigate pattern formation arising from cyclic dominance of three species, operating near a…
Motion of randomly-driven quantum nonlinear pendulum is considered. Utilizing one-step Poincar\'e map, we demonstrate that classical phase space corresponding to a single realization of the random perturbation involves domains of…
We consider long-time behavior of dynamical systems perturbed by a small noise. Under certain conditions, a slow component of such a motion, which is most important for long- time evolution, can be described as a motion on the cone of…