Related papers: An energy-based natural selection model
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…
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…
Social networks exhibit strikingly systematic patterns across a wide range of human contexts. While genetic variation accounts for a significant portion of the variation in many complex social behaviors, the heritability of egocentric…
Ecological resilience refers to the ability of a system to retain its state when subject to state variables perturbations or parameter changes. While understanding and quantifying resilience is crucial to anticipate the possible regime…
The quest to comprehend the origins of intelligence raises intriguing questions about the evolution of learning abilities in natural systems. Why do living organisms possess an inherent drive to acquire knowledge of the unknown? Is this…
The Gaia hypothesis considers the life-environment coupled system as a single entity that acts to regulate and maintain habitable conditions on Earth. In this paper we discuss three mechanisms which could potentially lead to Gaia: Selection…
We present a game of interacting agents which mimics the complex dynamics found in many natural and social systems. These agents modify their strategies periodically, depending on their performances using genetic crossover mechanisms,…
Commonly recognized evolutionarily relevant effects of sexual reproduction include increased diversity, accelerated adaptation, and constrained accumulation of deleterious mutations, along with a secondary effect of species genotype…
While the use of spatial agent-based and individual-based models has flourished across many scientific disciplines, the complexities these models generate are often difficult to manage and quantify. This research reduces population-driven,…
Species introductions to new habitats can cause a decline in the population size of competing native species and consequently also in their genetic diversity. We are interested in why these adverse effects are weak in some cases whereas in…
The dynamical evolution of many economic, sociological, biological and physical systems tends to be dominated by a relatively small number of unexpected, large changes (`extreme events'). We study the large, internal changes produced in a…
Plant breeding programs use data obtained from multi-environment selection experiments to produce improved varieties with the ultimate aim of maintaining high levels of genetic gain. Selection accuracy can be improved with the use of…
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…
Evolvability is defined as the ability of a population to generate heritable variation to facilitate its adaptation to new environments or selection pressures. In this article, we consider evolvability as a phenotypic trait subject to…
In the natural world, life has found innumerable ways to survive and often thrive. Between and even within species, each individual is in some manner unique, and this diversity lends adaptability and robustness to life. In this work, we aim…
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…
Cooperation is a widespread natural phenomenon yet current evolutionary thinking is dominated by the paradigm of selfish competition. Recent advanced in many fronts of Biology and Non-linear Physics are helping to bring cooperation to its…
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…
It is well known that life on Earth alters its environment over evolutionary and geological timescales. An important open question is whether this is a result of evolutionary optimization or a universal feature of life. In the latter case,…
This work proposes to model the space environment as a stochastic dynamic network where each node is a group of objects of a given class, or species, and their relationship is represented by stochastic links. A set of stochastic dynamic…