Related papers: On the feasibility of saltational evolution
Genetic fitness optimization using small populations or small population updates across generations generally suffers from randomly diverging evolutions. We propose a notion of highly probable fitness optimization through feasible…
The inheritance of characteristics induced by the environment has often been opposed to the theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet, while evolution by natural selection requires new heritable traits to be produced and transmitted, it…
Biological organisms have to cope with stochastic variations in both the external environment and the internal population dynamics. Theoretical studies and laboratory experiments suggest that population diversification could be an effective…
The theory of lithopanspermia proposes the natural exchange of organisms between solar system bodies through meteorites. The focus of this theory comprises three distinct stages: planetary ejection, interplanetary transit and planetary…
Stochastic models of sequential mutation acquisition are widely used to quantify cancer and bacterial evolution. Across manifold scenarios, recurrent research questions are: how many cells are there with $n$ alterations, and how long will…
Population genetics struggles to model extinction; standard models track the relative rather than absolute fitness of genotypes, while the exceptions describe only the short-term transition from imminent doom to evolutionary rescue. But…
A new delay equation is introduced to describe the punctuated evolution of complex nonlinear systems. A detailed analytical and numerical investigation provides the classification of all possible types of solutions for the dynamics of a…
In evolution theory the concept of a fitness landscape has played an important role, evolution itself being portrayed as a hill-climbing process on a rugged landscape. In this article it is shown that in general, in the presence of other…
Many mathematical models of evolution assume that all individuals experience the same environment. Here, we study the Moran process in heterogeneous environments. The population is of finite size with two competing types, which are exposed…
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…
Evolutionary adaptation is the process that increases the fit of a population to the fitness landscape it inhabits. As a consequence, evolutionary dynamics is shaped, constrained, and channeled, by that fitness landscape. Much work has been…
We describe a simple model of evolution which incorporates the branching and extinction of species lines, and also includes abiotic influences. A first principles approach is taken in which the probability for speciation and extinction are…
The tempo and mode of an adaptive process is strongly determined by the structure of the fitness landscape that underlies it. In order to be able to predict evolutionary outcomes (even on the short term), we must know more about the nature…
Large sets of genotypes give rise to the same phenotype because phenotypic expression is highly redundant. Accordingly, a population can accept mutations without altering its phenotype, as long as thegenotype mutates into another one on the…
Macroevolutionary dynamics often display sudden, explosive surges, where systems remain relatively stable for extended periods before experiencing dramatic acceleration that frequently exceeds traditional exponential growth. This pattern is…
We study the stochastic evolution of four species in cyclic competition in a well mixed environment. In systems composed of a finite number $N$ of particles these simple interaction rules result in a rich variety of extinction scenarios,…
A punctuated equilibrium model of biological evolution with relative fitness between different species being the fundamental driving force of evolution is introduced. Mutation is modeled as a fitness updating cellular automaton process…
Multitype branching processes are ideal for studying the population dynamics of stem cell populations undergoing mutation accumulation over the years following transplant. In such stochastic models, several quantities are of clinical…
The practice of evolutionary algorithms involves the tuning of many parameters. How big should the population be? How many generations should the algorithm run? What is the (tournament selection) tournament size? What probabilities should…
We find that the hypothesis made by Jan, Stauffer and Moseley [Theory in Biosc., 119, 166 (2000)] for the evolution of sex, namely a strategy devised to escape extinction due to too many deleterious mutations, is sufficient but not…