Related papers: The K-Pg event as a key to bat evolution
It is has been assumed for over half a century that the earliest animals were obligate aerobes with relatively high oxygen requirements. However, the conserved biochemistry and widespread phylogenetic distribution of anaerobic energy…
We propose an approach of open-ended evolution via the simulation of swarm dynamics. In nature, swarms possess remarkable properties, which allow many organisms, from swarming bacteria to ants and flocking birds, to form higher-order…
Motivated by novel results in the theory of complex adaptive systems, we analyze the dynamics of random walks in which the jumping probabilities are {\it time-dependent}. We determine the survival probability in the presence of an absorbing…
Evolutionary complexity is here measured by the number of trials/evaluations needed for evolving a logical gate in a non-linear medium. Behavioural complexity of the gates evolved is characterised in terms of cellular automata behaviour. We…
The Gaia hypothesis postulates that life regulates its environment to be favorable for its own survival. Most planets experience numerous perturbations throughout their lifetimes such as asteroid impacts, volcanism, and the evolution of…
This paper introduces a stochastic adaptive dynamics model for the interplay of several crucial traits and mechanisms in bacterial evolution, namely dormancy, horizontal gene transfer (HGT), mutation and competition. In particular, it…
We study the adaptive dynamics of predator-prey systems modeled by a dynamical system in which the traits of predators and prey are allowed to evolve by small mutations. When only the prey are allowed to evolve, and the size of the…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
Spatial extent is a complicating factor in mathematical biology. The possibility that an action at point A cannot immediately affect what happens at point B creates the opportunity for spatial nonuniformity. This nonuniformity must change…
It has recently been suggested that the fundamental haploid-diploid cycle of eukaryotic sex exploits a rudimentary form of the Baldwin effect. Thereafter the other associated phenomena can be explained as evolution tuning the amount and…
This paper deals with branching processes in varying environment, namely, whose offspring distributions depend on the generations. We provide sufficient conditions for survival or extinction which rely only on the first and second moments…
A central goal in ecology is to understand how biodiversity is maintained. Previous theoretical works have employed the rock-paper-scissors (RPS) game as a toy model, demonstrating that population mobility is crucial in determining the…
A review of the mechanisms of speciation is performed. The mechanisms of the evolution of species, taking into account the feedback of the state of the environment and mechanisms of the emergence of complexity, are considered. It is shown…
The isotropic distribution of gamma-ray bursts as observed with the Burst and Transient Experiment (BATSE) strongly suggests that the bursts are at cosmological distances. At such distances, the expansion of the universe should redshift the…
Evolutionary graph theory is a well established framework for modelling the evolution of social behaviours in structured populations. An emerging consensus in this field is that graphs that exhibit heterogeneity in the number of connections…
Dispersal is a well recognized driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, and simultaneously an evolving trait. Dispersal evolution has traditionally been studied in single-species metapopulations so that it remains unclear how…
The secular evolution process, which slowly transforms the morphology of a galaxy over its lifetime, could naturally account for observed properties of the great majority of physical galaxies if both stellar and gaseous accretion processes…
It has been hypothesized that in the era just before the last universal common ancestor emerged, life on earth was fundamentally collective. Ancient life forms shared their genetic material freely through massive horizontal gene transfer…
It is a common practice to describe branching random walks in terms of birth, death and walk of particles, which makes it easier to use them in different applications. The main results obtained for the models of symmetric continuous-time…
The search for life elsewhere in the universe is a pivotal question in modern science. However, to address whether life is common in the universe we must first understand the likelihood of abiogenesis by studying the origin of life on…