Related papers: The evolution of group differences in changing env…
Non-selective effects, like genetic drift, are an important factor in modern conceptions of evolution, and have been extensively studied for constant population sizes. Here, we consider non-selective evolution in the case of growing…
Genetic diversity is central to the process of evolution. Both natural selection and random genetic drift are influenced by the level of genetic diversity of a population; selection acts on diversity while drift samples from it. At a given…
The problem of natural selection in dispersal-structured populations consisting of individuals characterized by different diffusion coefficients is studied. The competition between the organisms is taken into account through the assumption…
Evolutionary game theory has been successfully used to investigate the dynamics of systems, in which many entities have competitive interactions. From a physics point of view, it is interesting to study conditions under which a coordination…
Biological evolution depends on the passing down to subsequent generations of genetic information encoding beneficial traits, and on the removal of unfit individuals by a selection mechanism. However, selection acts on phenotypes, and is…
The contribution to an organism's phenotype from one genetic locus may depend upon the status of other loci. Such epistatic interactions among loci are now recognized as fundamental to shaping the process of adaptation in evolving…
Species' interactions are shaped by their traits. Thus, we expect traits -- in particular, trait (dis)similarity -- to play a central role in determining whether a particular set of species coexists. Traits are, in turn, the outcome of an…
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…
In environments that vary frequently and unpredictably, bet-hedgers can overtake the population. Diversifying bet-hedgers have a diverse set of offspring so that, no matter the conditions they find themselves in, at least some offspring…
We conducted an investigation of the effect that extreme variability of the individual's environment has in the individual's adaptability and, in general, in the co-evolution of a population. First we assume that the individuals are a kind…
We consider the problem of determining the time evolution of a trait distribution in a mathematical model of non-uniform populations with parametric heterogeneity. This means that we consider only heterogeneous populations in which…
The interaction between natural selection and random mutation is frequently debated in recent years. Does similar dilemma also exist in the evolution of real networks such as biological networks? In this paper, we try to discuss this issue…
Many life-history traits, like the age at maturity or adult longevity, are important determinants of the generation time. For instance, semelparous species whose adults reproduce once and die have shorter generation times than iteroparous…
In classical evolutionary theory, genetic variation provides the source of heritable phenotypic variation on which natural selection acts. Against this classical view, several theories have emphasized that developmental variability and…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. Reproduction depends on the payoff a strategy receives. The payoff depends on the environment that may change over time, on intrinsic uncertainties, and on other sources of…
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…
Prevalence of cooperation within groups of selfish individuals is puzzling in that it contradicts with the basic premise of natural selection. Favoring players with higher fitness, the latter is key for understanding the challenges faced by…
Many biological phenomena or social events critically depend on how information evolves in complex networks. However, a general theory to characterize information evolution is yet absent. Consequently, numerous unknowns remain about the…
Organisms result from adaptive processes interacting across different time scales. One such interaction is that between development and evolution. Models have shown that development sweeps over several traits in a single agent, sometimes…
We introduce a model, based on the Evolutionary Game Theory, for studying the dynamics of group formation. The latter constitutes a relevant phenomenon observed in different animal species, whose individuals tend to cluster together forming…