Related papers: Satisfiability and Evolution
Standard neutral population genetics theory with a strictly fixed population size has important limitations. An alternative model that allows independently fluctuating population sizes and reproduces the standard neutral evolution is…
We analyze a stylized model of co-evolution between any two purely competing species (e.g., host and parasite), both sexually reproducing. Similarly to a recent model of Livnat \etal~\cite{evolfocs14} the fitness of an individual depends on…
Evolutionary multitasking has recently emerged as a novel paradigm that enables the similarities and/or latent complementarities (if present) between distinct optimization tasks to be exploited in an autonomous manner simply by solving them…
Sweepstakes reproduction may be generated by chance matching of reproduction with favorable environmental conditions. Gene genealogies generated by sweepstakes reproduction are in the domain of attraction of multiple-merger coalescents…
Existing theoretical models of evolution focus on the relative fitness advantages of different mutants in a population while the dynamic behavior of the population size is mostly left unconsidered. We here present a generic stochastic model…
The concept of fitness is central to evolution, but it quantifies only the expected number of offspring an individual will produce. The actual number of offspring is also subject to noise, arising from environmental or demographic…
BACKGROUND: An important question is whether evolution favors properties such as mutational robustness or evolvability that do not directly benefit any individual, but can influence the course of future evolution. Functionally similar…
Darwin's theory of evolution is considered to be one of the greatest scientific gems in modern science. It not only gives us a description of how living things evolve, but also shows how a population evolves through time and also, why only…
We review the statistical properties of the genealogies of a few models of evolution. In the asexual case, selection leads to coalescence times which grow logarithmically with the size of the population in contrast with the linear growth of…
Many life-history traits, like the age at maturity or adult longevity, are important determinants of the generation time. For instance, semelparous species whose adults reproduce once and die have shorter generation times than iteroparous…
Satisfiability is a classic problem in computational complexity theory, in which one wishes to determine whether an assignment of values to a collection of Boolean variables exists in which all of a collection of clauses composed of logical…
Evolutionary game theory is an abstract and simple, but very powerful way to model evolutionary dynamics. Even complex biological phenomena can sometimes be abstracted to simple two-player games. But often, the interaction between several…
This article is motivated by the following satisfiability question: pick uniformly at random an and/or Boolean expression of length n, built on a set of k_n Boolean variables. What is the probability that this expression is satisfiable?…
This theory seeks to define species and to explore evolutionary forces and genetic elements in speciation and species maintenance. The theory explains how speciation and species maintenance are caused by natural selection acting on…
Evolvability is defined as the ability of a population to generate heritable variation to facilitate its adaptation to new environments or selection pressures. In this article, we consider evolvability as a phenotypic trait subject to…
The provision of intergenerational care, via the Grandmother Hypothesis, has been implicated in the evolution of post-fertile longevity, particularly in humans. However, if grandmothering does provide fitness benefits, a key question is why…
Sex is considered as an evolutionary paradox, since its evolutionary advantage does not necessarily overcome the two fold cost of sharing half of one's offspring's genome with another member of the population. Here we demonstrate that…
Concomitant with the evolution of biological diversity must have been the evolution of mechanisms that facilitate evolution, due to the essentially infinite complexity of protein sequence space. We describe how evolvability can be an object…
At any moment in time, evolution is faced with a formidable challenge: refining the already highly optimised design of biological species, a feat accomplished through all preceding generations. In such a scenario, the impact of random…
A continuous variable changing between 0 and 1 is introduced to characterise contentment, or satisfaction with life, of an individual and an equation governing its evolution is postulated from analysis of several factors likely to affect…