Related papers: Sympatric speciation based on pure assortative mat…
We investigate the role of assortative mating in speciation using the sympatric model of Derrida and Higgs. The model explores the idea that genetic differences create incompatibilities between individuals, preventing mating if the number…
When a population inhabits an inhomogeneous environment, the fitness value of traits can vary with the position in the environment. Gene flow caused by random mating can nevertheless prevent that a sexually reproducing population splits…
A novel mechanism for sympatric speciation that takes into account complex bio-processes within each individual organism is proposed. According to dynamical systems theory, organisms with identical genotypes can possess differentiated…
A mechanism of sympatric speciation is presented based on the interaction-induced developmental plasticity of phenotypes. First, phenotypes of individuals with identical genotypes split into a few groups, according to instability in the…
One of the most challenging issues of evolutionary biology concerns speciation, the emergence of new species from an initial one. The huge amount of species found in nature demands a simple and robust mechanism. Yet, no consensus has been…
Mechanisms leading to speciation are a major focus in evolutionary biology. In this paper, we present and study a stochastic model of population where individuals, with type a or A, are equivalent from ecological, demographical and spatial…
Spatial separation is often included in models of ethnic divergence but it has also been realised that urban subcultures can, and frequently do, emerge in sympatry. Previous research tended to attribute this phenomenon to the human tendency…
A microscopic model is developed, within the frame of the theory of quantitative traits, to study both numerically and analytically the combined effect of competition and assortativity on the sympatric speciation process, i.e. speciation in…
The evolutionary and ecological processes behind the origin of species are among the most fundamental problems in biology. In fact, many theoretical hypothesis on different type of speciation have been proposed. In particular, models of…
Neutral speciation mechanisms based on isolation by distance and sexual selection, termed topopatric, have recently been shown to describe the observed patterns of abundance distributions and species-area relationships. Previous works have…
Background: Speciation corresponds to the progressive establishment of reproductive barriers between groups of individuals derived from an ancestral stock. Since Darwin did not believe that reproductive barriers could be selected for, he…
Recent theoretical studies have shown that demographic stochasticity can greatly increase the tendency of asexually reproducing phenotypically diverse organisms to spontaneously evolve into localised clusters, suggesting a simple mechanism…
Parapatric speciation is studied using an individual--based model with sexual reproduction. We combine the theory of mutation accumulation for biological ageing with an environmental selection pressure that varies according to the…
Geographic isolation is a central mechanism of speciation, but perfect isolation of populations is rare. Although speciation can be hindered if gene flow is large, intermediate levels of migration can enhance speciation by introducing…
The speciation model proposed by Derrida and Higgs demonstrated that a sexually reproducing population can split into different species in the absence of natural selection or any type of geographic isolation, provided that mating is…
A classical view of speciation is that reproductive isolation arises as a by-product of genetic divergence. Here, individual-based simulations are used to evaluate whether the mechanisms implied by this view may result in rapid speciation…
Speciation is often associated with geographical barriers that limit gene flow. However, species can also emerge in continuous homogeneous environments through isolation by distance. When the environment is not homogeneous, natural…
In this study, we construct an evolutionary model of a population of DNA sequences interacting with the surrounding environment on the topological monoid A* of strings on the alphabet A = { a, c, g, t }. A partial differential equation…
In this paper we expand the concept of biological speciation by symmetry breaking of Golubitsky and Stewart to the case of three clades in which N populations following the same dynamical laws can separate. The underlying differential…
More than any other species, humans form social ties to individuals who are neither kin nor mates, and these ties tend to be with similar people. Here, we show that this similarity extends to genotypes. Across the whole genome, friends'…