Related papers: Evolutionary stability and the rarity of grandmoth…
We use a two-sex partial differential equation (PDE) model based on the Grandmother Hypothesis. We build on an earlier model by Kim et al. [27] by allowing for evolution in both longevity and age at last birth, and also assuming that…
We present a mathematical simplification for the evolutionary dynamics of a heritable trait within a two-sex population. This trait is assumed to control the timing of sex-specific life-history events, such as the age of sexual maturity and…
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…
Great apes, the other living members of our hominid family, become decrepit before the age of forty and rarely outlive their fertile years. In contrast, women - even in high mortality hunter-gatherer populations - usually remain healthy and…
Extensive post reproductive lifespan (PRLS) is observed only in a few species, such as humans or resident killer whales, and its origin is under debate. Hypotheses like mother-care and grandmother-care invoke strategies of…
The grandmother hypothesis is the most influential account of the evolution of menopause in humans, but other theories warrant investigation. Here I use simulations to investigate two theories that ground the evolution of menopause in…
The question as to why most higher organisms reproduce sexually has remained open despite extensive research, and has been called "the queen of problems in evolutionary biology". Theories dating back to Weismann have suggested that the key…
When predicting the fate and consequences of recurring deleterious mutations in self-fertilising populations most models developed make the assumption that populations have discrete non-overlapping generations. This makes them biologically…
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…
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…
Traditionally evolution is seen as a process where from a pool of possible variations of a population (e.g. biological species or industrial goods) a few variations get selected which survive and proliferate, whereas the others vanish.…
If two species exhibit different nonlinear responses to a single shared resource, and if each species modifies the resource dynamics such that this favors its competitor, they may stably coexist. This coexistence mechanism, known as…
How fast does a population evolve from one fitness peak to another? We study the dynamics of evolving, asexually reproducing populations in which a certain number of mutations jointly confer a fitness advantage. We consider the time until a…
Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will…
Commonly recognized evolutionarily relevant effects of sexual reproduction include increased diversity, accelerated adaptation, and constrained accumulation of deleterious mutations, along with a secondary effect of species genotype…
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…
The probability of the survival of the population of individuals of both sexes of given mature age, procreation rate and structure stability has been searched in the numerical experiment. The populations with long period of reproduction and…
Prevalence of cooperation within groups of selfish individuals is puzzling in that it contradicts with the basic premise of natural selection. Favoring players with higher fitness, the latter is key for understanding the challenges faced by…
Understanding the influence of an environment on the evolution of its resident population is a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Great progress has been made in homogeneous population structures while heterogeneous structures have…
Aging is thought to be a consequence of intrinsic breakdowns in how genetic information is processed. But mounting experimental evidence suggests that aging can be slowed. To help resolve this mystery, I derive a mortality equation which…