Related papers: On the feasibility of saltational evolution
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…
We introduce a model of biological evolution where species evolve in response to biotic interactions and a fluctuating environmental stress. The species may either become extinct or mutate to acquire a new fitness value when the effective…
We propose a minimal model to simulate long waiting times followed by evolutionary bursts on rugged landscapes. It combines point and inversions-like mutations as sources of genetic variation. The inversions are intended to simulate one of…
We have simulated the evolution of age structured populations whose individuals represented by their diploid genomes were distributed on a square lattice. The environmental conditions on the whole territory changed simultaneously in the…
This piece serves two purposes. Firstly, it aims at elucidating the role of epistasis in shaping, at a molecular level, the evolutionary paths of proteins, as well as the extent to which these epistatic effects are the outcome of an…
We consider a fitness-structured population model with competition and migration between nearest neighbors. Under a combination of large population and rare migration limits we are particularly interested in the asymptotic behavior of the…
We analyze the population dynamics of a broad class of fitness functions that exhibit epochal evolution---a dynamical behavior, commonly observed in both natural and artificial evolutionary processes, in which long periods of stasis in an…
To our knowledge, the populations are generally assumed to be homogeneous in the traditional approach to evolutionary game dynamics. Here, we focus on the inhomogeneous populations. A simple model which can describe the inhomogeneity of the…
Using a lattice model based on Monte Carlo simulations, we study the role of the reproduction pattern on the fate of an evolving population. Each individual is under the selection pressure from the environment and random mutations. The…
Horizontal gene transfer consists in exchanging genetic materials between microorganisms during their lives. This is a major mechanism of bacterial evolution and is believed to be of main importance in antibiotics resistance. We consider a…
We consider an exponentially growing population of cells undergoing mutations and ask about the effect of reproductive fluctuations (genetic drift) on its long-term evolution. We combine first step analysis with the stochastic dynamics of a…
One essential ingredient of evolutionary theory is the concept of fitness as a measure for a species' success in its living conditions. Here, we quantify the effect of environmental fluctuations onto fitness by analytical calculations on a…
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…
The idea that there are any large-scale trends in the evolution of biological organisms is highly controversial. It is commonly believed, for example, that there is a large-scale trend in evolution towards increasing complexity, but…
Environmental changes greatly influence the evolution of populations. Here, we study the dynamics of a population of two strains, one growing slightly faster than the other, competing for resources in a time-varying binary environment…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. The structure of a biological population affects which traits evolve. Understanding evolutionary game dynamics in structured populations is difficult. Precise results have been…
Our understanding of evolution is shaped strongly by how we conceive of its fundamental causes. In the original Modern Synthesis, evolution was defined as a process of shifting the frequencies of available alleles at many loci affecting a…
We consider a stochastic individual-based model of adaptive dynamics on a finite trait graph $G=(V,E)$. The evolution is driven by a linear birth rate, a density dependent logistic death rate an the possibility of mutations along the…
We study the evolution of large but finite asexual populations evolving in fitness landscapes in which all mutations are either neutral or strongly deleterious. We demonstrate that despite the absence of higher fitness genotypes, adaptation…
A simple model of macroevolution is proposed exhibiting both the property of punctuated equilibrium and the dynamics of potentialities for different species to evolve towards increasingly higher complexity. It is based on the phenomenon of…