Related papers: Modelling Invasion Dynamics with Spatial Random-Fi…

Pathogen transmission and virulence are main evolutionary variables broadly assumed to be linked through trade-offs. In well-mixed populations, these trade-offs are often ascribed to physiological restrictions, while populations with…

Understanding how to limit biological invasion is critical, especially in the context of accelerating anthropogenic ecological changes. Although biological invasion success could be explained by the lack of natural enemies in new regions,…

The evolution of microbial and viral organisms often generates clonal interference, a mode of competition between genetic clades within a population. In this paper, we show that interference strongly constrains the genetic and phenotypic…

Biological systems are majorly dependent on their property of bistability in order to exhibit nongenetic heterogeneity in terms of cellular morphology and physiology. Spatial patterns of phenotypically heterogeneous cells, arising due to…

We investigate the exploration of rugged fitness landscapes by spatially structured populations with demes on the nodes of a graph, connected by migrations. In the rare migration regime, we find that finite structures can adapt more…

The compartmentalization of distinct templates in protocells and the exchange of templates between them (migration) are key elements of a modern scenario for prebiotic evolution. Here we use the diffusion approximation of population…

When the motion of a motile cell is observed closely, it appears erratic, and yet the combination of nonequilibrium forces and surfaces can produce striking examples of organization in microbial systems. While most of our current…

We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…

The evolution of antimicrobial resistance generally occurs in an environment where antimicrobial concentration is variable, which has dramatic consequences on the microorganisms' fitness landscape, and thus on the evolution of resistance.…

Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly…

It is well-known that interactions between species determine the population composition in an ecosystem. Conventional studies have focused on fixed population structures to reveal how interactions shape population compositions. However,…

Mutational robustness quantifies the effect of random mutations on fitness. When mutational robustness is high, most mutations do not change fitness or have only a minor effect on it. From the point of view of fitness landscapes, robust…

Biological evolution can be conceptualized as a search process in the space of gene sequences guided by the fitness landscape, a mapping that assigns a measure of reproductive value to each genotype. Here we discuss probabilistic models of…

Metapopulation models have been instrumental in demonstrating the ecological impact of landscape structure on the survival of a focal species in complex environments. However, extensions to multiple species with arbitrary dispersal networks…

Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…

Heterogeneity within tumour cell populations is associated with an increase in malignancy and appears to play an important role during cancer metastasis. Using in silico experiments, we study the interplay between collective behaviours and…

We investigate the dynamics of a simple epidemiological model for the invasion by a pathogen strain of a population where another strain circulates. We assume that reinfection by the same strain is possible but occurs at a reduced rate due…

The ability of mixotrophs to combine phototrophy and phagotrophy is now well recognized and found to have important implications for ecosystem dynamics. In this paper we examine the dynamical consequences of the invasion of mixotrophs in a…

Many biological populations exhibit diversity in their strategy for survival and reproduction in a given environment, and microbes are an example. We explore the fate of different strategies under sustained environmental change by…

Mutation rate is a key determinant of the pace as well as outcome of evolution, and variability in this rate has been shown in different scenarios to play a key role in evolutionary adaptation and resistance evolution under stress caused by…