Related papers: Progress and open problems in evolutionary dynamic…
Genetic information and environmental factors determine the path of an individuals life and therefore, the evolution of its entire species. We have succeeded in proposing and studying a model that captures this idea. In our model, a…
Computer modelling for evolutionary systems consists in: 1) to store in the memory the individual features of each member of a large population; and 2) to update the whole system repeatedly, as time goes by, according to some prescribed…
Many socio-economic and biological processes can be modeled as systems of interacting individuals. The behaviour of such systems can be often described within game-theoretic models. In these lecture notes, we introduce fundamental concepts…
We demonstrate with a thought experiment that fitness-based population dynamical approaches to evolution are not able to make quantitative, falsifiable predictions about the long-term behavior of evolutionary systems. A key characteristic…
The dynamics of adaptation is difficult to predict because it is highly stochastic even in large populations. The uncertainty emerges from number fluctuations, called genetic drift, arising in the small number of particularly fit…
Pathogens drive changes in host immune systems that in turn exert pressure for pathogens to evolve. Quantifying and understanding this constant coevolutionary process has clear practical global health implications. Yet its relatively easier…
The coupling between evolutionary and ecological changes (eco-evolutionary dynamics) has been shown to be relevant among diverse species, and is also of interest outside of ecology, i.e. in cancer evolution. These dynamics play an important…
To learn about the past from a sample of genomic sequences, one needs to understand how evolutionary processes shape genetic diversity. Most population genetic inference is based on frameworks assuming adaptive evolution is rare. But if…
Protein evolution underpins life, and understanding its behavior as a system is of great importance. However, our current models of protein evolution are arguably too simplistic to allow quantitative interpretation and prediction of…
The role of the selection pressure and mutation amplitude on the behavior of a single-species population evolving on a two-dimensional lattice, in a periodically changing environment, is studied both analytically and numerically. The…
Biological systems reach organizational complexity that far exceeds the complexity of any known inanimate objects. Biological entities undoubtedly obey the laws of quantum physics and statistical mechanics. However, is modern physics…
Evolutionary biology shares many concepts with statistical physics: both deal with populations, whether of molecules or organisms, and both seek to simplify evolution in very many dimensions. Often, methodologies have undergone parallel and…
We study the statistics of ecosystems with a variable number of co-evolving species. The species interact in two ways: by prey-predator relationships and by direct competition with similar kinds. The interaction coefficients change slowly…
A class of models for large-scale evolution and mass extinctions is presented. These models incorporate environmental changes on all scales, from influences on a single species to global effects. This is a step towards a unified picture of…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
The dynamical evolution of many economic, sociological, biological and physical systems tends to be dominated by a relatively small number of unexpected, large changes (`extreme events'). We study the large, internal changes produced in a…
Competition between species and genotypes is a dominant factor in a variety of ecological and evolutionary processes. Biological dynamics are typically highly stochastic, and therefore, analyzing a competitive system requires accounting for…
The controversy concerning both the definition of the species and methods for inferring the boundaries and numbers of species has occupied biologists for centuries, and the debate itself has become known as the species problem. The modern…
Recently, computational modelling became a very important research tool that enables us to study problems that for decades evaded scientific analysis. Evolutionary systems are certainly examples of such problems: they are composed of many…
We discuss a simple model of co-evolution. In order to emphasise the effect of interaction between individuals the entire population is subjected to the same physical environment. Species are emergent structures and extinction, origination…