Related papers: The collapse of ecosystem engineer populations
We integrate dual-process theories of human cognition with evolutionary game theory to study the evolution of automatic and controlled decision-making processes. We introduce a model where agents who make decisions using either automatic or…
Highly-diverse ecosystems exhibit a broad distribution of population sizes and species turnover, where species at high and low abundances are exchanged over time. We show that these two features generically emerge in the fluctuating phase…
Essential to each other, growth and exploration are jointly observed in populations, be it alive such as animals and cells or inanimate such as goods and money. But their ability to move, crucial to cope with uncertainty and optimize…
Due to the conventional distinction between ecological (rapid) and evolutionary (slow)timescales, ecological and population models to date have typically ignored the effects of evolution. Yet the potential for rapid evolutionary change has…
We study a dynamical model of a population of cooperators and defectors whose actions have long-term consequences on environmental "commons" - what we term the "resource". Cooperators contribute to restoring the resource whereas defectors…
It is well-known that population structure is a catalyst for the evolution of cooperation since individuals can reciprocate with their neighbors through local interactions defined by network structures. Previous research typically relies on…
A class of models is introduced describing the evolution of population species whose carrying capacities are functionals of these populations. The functional dependence of the carrying capacities reflects the fact that the correlations…
Species introductions to new habitats can cause a decline in the population size of competing native species and consequently also in their genetic diversity. We are interested in why these adverse effects are weak in some cases whereas in…
We study the behavior of an infinite system of ordinary differential equations modeling the dynamics of a metapopulation, a set of (discrete) populations subject to local catastrophes and connected via migration under a mean field rule; the…
Biological aging is characterized by an age-dependent increase in the probability of death and by a decrease in the reproductive capacity. Individual age-dependent rates of survival and reproduction have a strong impact on population…
Evolutionary systems must learn to generalize, often extrapolating from a limited set of selective conditions to anticipate future environmental changes. The mechanisms enabling such generalization remain poorly understood, despite their…
The evolutionary spread of cheater strategies can destabilize populations engaging in cooperative behaviors, thus demonstrating that evolutionary changes can have profound implications for populations dynamics. At the same time, the…
A cyclically dominating three-species ecosystem, modeled within the framework of rock-paper-scissor game, is studied in presence of natural death and an effect of the environment. The environmental impact is parameterized along with the…
Models in evolutionary game theory traditionally assume symmetric interactions in homogeneous environments. Here, we consider populations evolving in a heterogeneous environment, which consists of patches of different qualities that are…
We introduce an individual-based model of a complex ecological community with random interactions. The model contains a large number of species, each with a finite population of individuals, subject to discrete reproduction and death…
Evolution has fascinated quantitative and physical scientists for decades: how can the random process of mutation, recombination, and duplication of genetic information generate the diversity of life? What determines the rate of evolution?…
Recent collapses of many fisheries across the globe have challenged the mathematical approach to these systems through classic bioeconomic models. Decimated populations did not recover as fast as predicted by these models and depensatory…
Contrary to common belief, both the Earth's human population and its economic output have grown faster than exponential, i.e., in a super-Malthusian mode, for most of the known history. These growth rates are compatible with a spontaneous…
We investigate the formation of stable ecological networks where many species share the same resource. We show that such stable ecosystem naturally occurs as a result of extinctions. We obtain an analytical relation for the number of…
Empirical observations show that ecological communities can have a huge number of coexisting species, also with few or limited number of resources. These ecosystems are characterized by multiple type of interactions, in particular…