Related papers: Spatial dynamics of synthetic microbial hypercycle…

Bacterial conglomerates such as biofilms and microcolonies are ubiquitous in nature and play an important role in industry and medicine. In contrast to well-mixed, diluted cultures routinely used in microbial research, bacteria in a…

We investigate how the pattern of contacts between species in mutualistic ecosystems is affected by the phylogenetic proximity between the species of each guild. We develop several theoretical tools to measure that effect and we use them to…

We consider the lifetimes of metastable states in bistable evolutionary games (coordination games), and examine how they are affected by spatial structure. A semiclassical approximation based on a path integral method is applied to…

The problem of evolutionary complexification of life is considered one of the fundamental aspects in contemporary evolutionary theory. Parasitism is ubiquitous, inevitable, and arises as soon as the first replicators appear, even during the…

Context: Star clusters form within giant molecular clouds that are strongly altered by the feedback action of the massive stars, but the cluster still remains embedded in a dense, highly turbulent medium and interactions with ambient…

Multipartite viruses replicate through a puzzling evolutionary strategy. Their genome is segmented into two or more parts, and encapsidated in separate particles that appear to propagate independently. Completing the replication cycle,…

The spatial dispersal of individuals is known to play an important role in the dynamics of populations, and is central to metapopulation theory. At the same time, local adaptation to environmental conditions creates a geographic mosaic of…

How large ecosystems can create and maintain the remarkable biodiversity we see in nature is probably one of the biggest open questions in science, attracting attention from different fields, from Theoretical Ecology to Mathematics and…

Eco-evolutionary frameworks can explain certain features of communities in which ecological and evolutionary processes occur over comparable timescales. Here, we investigate whether an evolutionary dynamics may interact with the spatial…

The role of dispersal on the stability and synchrony of a metacommunity is a topic of considerable interest in theoretical ecology. Dispersal is known to promote both synchrony, which enhances the likelihood of extinction, and spatial…

The expansion of biological species in natural environments is usually described as the combined effect of individual spatial dispersal and growth. In the case of aquatic ecosystems flow transport can also be extremely relevant as an extra,…

Resource competition is a fundamental interaction in natural communities.However little is known about competition in spatial environments where organisms are able to regulate resource distributions. Here, we analyze the competition of two…

Here, we study the evolution of specialization using realistic computer simulations of bacteria that secrete two public goods in a dynamic fluid. Through this first principles approach, we find physical factors such as diffusion, flow…

Living systems evolve one mutation at a time, but a single mutation can alter the effect of subsequent mutations. The underlying mechanistic determinants of such epistasis are unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the physical dynamics of a…

Frequency-dependent selection reflects the interaction between different species as they battle for limited resources in their environment. In a stochastic evolutionary game the species relative fitnesses guides the evolutionary dynamics…

Global environmental change is affecting species distribution and their interactions with other species. In particular, the main drivers of environmental change strongly affect the strength of interspecific interactions with considerable…

We investigate the dynamics of dual disease epidemics within the spatial rock-paper-scissors model. In this framework, individuals from all species are equally susceptible to infection by two distinct pathogens transmitted via…

Spatially explicit models have been widely used in today's mathematical ecology and epidemiology to study persistence and extinction of populations as well as their spatial patterns. Here we extend the earlier work--static dispersal between…

We investigate the effects of cooperativity between contagion processes that spread and persist in a host population. We propose and analyze a dynamical model in which individuals that are affected by one transmissible agent $A$ exhibit a…

Numerous experimental studies have demonstrated that the microenvironment is a key regulator influencing the proliferative and migrative potentials of species. Spatial and temporal disturbances lead to adverse and hazardous…