Related papers: On the feasibility of saltational evolution
Adaptation is a central topic in theoretical biology, of practical importance for analyzing drug resistance mutations. Several authors have used arguments based on extreme value theory in their work on adaptation. There are complications…
BACKGROUND: An important question is whether evolution favors properties such as mutational robustness or evolvability that do not directly benefit any individual, but can influence the course of future evolution. Functionally similar…
Computational modelling with multi-agent systems is becoming an important technique of studying language evolution. We present a brief introduction into this rapidly developing field, as well as our own contributions that include an…
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…
We propose a new, flexible approach for dynamically maintaining successful mutation rates in evolutionary algorithms using $k$-bit flip mutations. The algorithm adds successful mutation rates to an archive of promising rates that are…
The majority of current phylogenetic comparative methods assume that the stochastic evolutionary process is homogeneous over the phylogeny or offer relaxations of this in rather limited and usually parameter expensive ways. Here we make a…
We are interested in the impact of natural selection in a prey-predator community. We introduce an individual-based model of the community that takes into account both prey and predator phenotypes. Our aim is to understand the phenotypic…
Evolution is the process of optimal adaptation of biological populations to their living environments. This is expressed via the concept of fitness, defined as relative reproductive success. However, it has been pointed out that this…
The environment has a strong influence on a population's evolutionary dynamics. Driven by both intrinsic and external factors, the environment is subject to continual change in nature. To capture an ever-changing environment, we consider a…
An elastic spring network is an example of evolvable matter. It can be pruned to couple separated pairs of nodes so that when a strain is applied to one of them, the other responds either in-phase or out-of-phase. This produces two pruned…
This paper focuses on the maximum speed at which biological evolution can occur. I derive inequalities that limit the rate of evolutionary processes driven by natural selection, mutations, or genetic drift. These \emph{rate limits} link the…
Motivated by present activities in (statistical) physics directed towards biological evolution, we review the interplay of three evolutionary forces: mutation, selection, and genetic drift. The review addresses itself to physicists and…
Convergence of discrete-time Markov chains with two timescales is a powerful tool to study stochastic evolutionary games in subdivided populations. Focusing on linear games within demes, convergence to a diffusion process for the strategy…
The purpose of this roadmap article is to draw attention to a paradigm shift in our understanding of evolution towards a perspective of ecological-evolutionary feedback, highlighted through two recent highly simplified examples of rapid…
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…
Evolutionary dynamics is often viewed as a subtle process of change accumulation that causes a divergence among organisms and their genomes. However, this interpretation is an inheritance of a gradualistic view that has been challenged at…
Biological evolution can be conceptualized as a search process in the space of gene sequences guided by the fitness landscape, a mapping that assigns a measure of reproductive value to each genotype. Here we discuss probabilistic models of…
In a complex community, species continuously adapt to each other. On rare occasions, the adaptation of a species can lead to the extinction of others, and even its own. "Adaptive dynamics" is the standard mathematical framework to describe…
How individuals adapt their behavior in cultural evolution remains elusive. Theoretical studies have shown that the update rules chosen to model individual decision making can dramatically modify the evolutionary outcome of the population…
We propose a simple model for genetic adaptation to a changing environment, describing a fitness landscape characterized by two maxima. One is associated with "specialist" individuals that are adapted to the environment; this maximum moves…