Related papers: Stochastic processes and host-parasite coevolution…
When organisms adapt to spatially heterogeneous environments, selection may drive divergence at multiple genes. If populations under divergent selection also exchange migrants, we expect genetic differentiation to be high at selected loci,…
The outcome of competition among species is influenced by the spatial distribution of species and effects such as demographic stochasticity, immigration fluxes, and the existence of preferred habitats. We introduce an individual-based model…
We describe a continuous-time modelling framework for biological population dynamics that accounts for demographic noise. In the spirit of the methodology used by statistical physicists, transitions between the states of the system are…
Intraspecific trait variation has been increasingly recognized as an important factor in determining species interaction and diversity. Eco-evolutionary models have studied the distribution of trait values within a population that changes…
The role of epistatic interactions among loci is a central question in evolutionary biology and is increasingly relevant in the genomic age. While the population genetics of compensatory substitution have received considerable attention,…
We identify the genetic signature of a selective sweep in a population described by a birth-and-death process with density dependent competition. We study the limit behaviour for large K, where K scales the population size. We focus on two…
In this paper, we study the significance of ecological interactions and separation of birth and death dynamics in stochastic heterogeneous populations via general birth-death processes. Interactions can manifest through the birth dynamics,…
Populations evolving under the joint influence of recombination and resampling (traditionally known as genetic drift) are investigated. First, we summarise and adapt a deterministic approach, as valid for infinite populations, which assumes…
Ecological selection is a major driver of community assembly. Selection is classified as stabilizing when species with intermediate trait values gain the highest reproductive success, whereas selection is considered directional when fitness…
Discrete-time models are the traditional approach for capturing population dynamics of a host-parasitoid system. Recent work has introduced a semi-discrete framework for obtaining model update functions that connect host-parasitoid…
Understanding the time evolution of fragmented animal populations and their habitats, connected by migration, is a problem of both theoretical and practical interest. This paper presents a method for calculating the time evolution of the…
Deterministic continuum models formulated in terms of non-local partial differential equations for the evolutionary dynamics of populations structured by phenotypic traits have been used recently to address open questions concerning the…
A major goal of molecular evolutionary biology is to identify loci or regions of the genome under selection versus those evolving in a neutral manner. Correct identification allows accurate inference of the evolutionary process and thus…
We investigate the interplay between two fundamental mechanisms of microbial population dynamics and evolution called dormancy and horizontal gene transfer. The corresponding traits come in many guises and are ubiquitous in microbial…
Phenotypic variation is a hallmark of cellular physiology. Metabolic heterogeneity, in particular, underpins single-cell phenomena such as microbial drug tolerance and growth variability. Much research has focussed on transcriptomic and…
Heterozygote disadvantage is potentially a potent driver of population genetic divergence. Also referred to as underdominance, this phenomena describes a situation where a genetic heterozygote has a lower overall fitness than either…
In this paper, we extend a model of host-parasite co-evolution to incorporate the semi-conservative nature of DNA replication for both the host and the parasite. We find that the optimal mutation rate for the semi-conservative and…
Since steep declines in a population's size also typically alter its composition, population bottlenecks are considered highly important for evolution. However, despite such significance, the mechanisms governing the impact of a given…
In biology phenotypic switching is a common bet-hedging strategy in the face of uncertain environmental conditions. Existing mathematical models often focus on periodically changing environments to determine the optimal phenotypic response.…
Reductions in natural habitats urge that we better understand species' interconnection and how biological communities respond to environmental changes. However, ecological studies of species' interactions are limited by their geographic and…