Related papers: Sex as information processing: optimality and evol…
The evolution and function of imitation have always been placed within the confines of animal learning and associated with its crucial role in cultural transmission and cultural evolution. Can imitation evolve as a form of phenotypic…
This paper introduces a bilateral matching mechanism to explain why different populations have different levels of cooperation. The traditional game theory assumes that individuals can acquire their neighbor's information without cost after…
The analysis of the demographic transition of the past century and a half, using both empirical data and mathematical models, has rendered a wealth of well-established facts, including the dramatic increases in life expectancy. Despite…
The process of `Evolutionary Diffusion', i.e. reproduction with local mutation but without selection in a biological population, resembles standard Diffusion in many ways. However, Evolutionary Diffusion allows the formation of local peaks…
We investigate the evolutionary dynamics of a population structured in phenotype, subjected to trait dependent selection with a linearly moving optimum and an asexual mode of reproduction. Our model consists of a non-local and non-linear…
Environment plays a fundamental role in the competition for resources, and hence in the evolution of populations. Here, we study a well-mixed, finite population consisting of two strains competing for the limited resources provided by an…
The expansion of a population into new habitat is a transient process that leaves its footprints in the genetic composition of the expanding population. How the structure of the environment shapes the population front and the evolutionary…
The environment in which a population evolves can have a crucial impact on selection. We study evolutionary dynamics in finite populations of fixed size in a changing environment. The population dynamics are driven by birth and death…
The notion of information pervades informal descriptions of biological systems, but formal treatments face the problem of defining a quantitative measure of information rooted in a concept of fitness, which is itself an elusive notion.…
Understanding how stochastic and non-linear deterministic processes interact is a major challenge in population dynamics theory. After a short review, we introduce a stochastic individual-centered particle model to describe the evolution in…
A major aim of evolutionary biology is to explain the respective roles of adaptive versus non-adaptive changes in the evolution of complexity. While selection is certainly responsible for the spread and maintenance of complex phenotypes,…
We describe the simulation method of modelling the population evolution using Monte Carlo based on the Penna model. Individuals in the populations are represented by their diploid genomes. Genes expressed after the minimum reproduction age…
We examine the feasibility of predicting and subsequently managing the future evolution of a Complex Adaptive System. Our archetypal system mimics a competitive population of mechanical, biological, informational or human objects. We show…
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…
At what level does selective pressure effectively act? When considering the reproductive dynamics of interacting and mutating agents, it has long been debated whether selection is better understood by focusing on the individual or if…
Any organism is embedded in an environment that changes over time. The timescale for and statistics of environmental change, the precision with which the organism can detect its environment, and the costs and benefits of particular protein…
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…
Dormancy is a widespread adaptive strategy that enables populations to persist in fluctuating environments, yet how its benefits depend on the temporal structure of environmental variability remains unclear. We examine how dormancy…
A question in evolutionary biology is why the number of males is approximately equal to that of females in many species, and Fisher's theory of equal investment answers that it is the evolutionarily stable state. The Fisherian mechanism can…
We consider an asexual biological population of constant size $N$ evolving in discrete time under the influence of selection and mutation. Beneficial mutations appear at rate $U$ and their selective effects $s$ are drawn from a distribution…