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The far-reaching consequences of ecological interactions in the dynamics of biological communities remain an intriguing subject. For decades, competition has been a cornerstone in ecological processes, but mounting evidence shows that…

Diversity is an important factor in evolutionary algorithms to prevent premature convergence towards a single local optimum. In order to maintain diversity throughout the process of evolution, various means exist in literature. We analyze…

The commonly observed negative correlation between the number of species in an ecological community and disease risk, typically referred to as "the dilution effect", has received a substantial amount of attention over the past decade.…

Phenotypes of individuals in a population of organisms are not fixed. Phenotypic fluctuations, which describe temporal variation of the phenotype of an individual or individual-to-individual variation across a population, are present in…

Biological living systems in general exhibit complex and diverse dynamics. The latter, in particular, is essential, since diversification increases the odds of survival of an organism while reducing the risk of extinction of the population.…

Biological evolution is realised through the same mechanisms of birth and death that underlie change in population density. The deep interdependence between ecology and evolution is well-established, and recent models focus on integrating…

Explaining biodiversity is a central focus in theoretical ecology. A significant obstacle arises from the Competitive Exclusion Principle (CEP), which states that two species competing for the same type of resources cannot coexist at…

In microbial communities, each species often has multiple, distinct phenotypes, but studies of ecological stability have largely ignored this subpopulation structure. Here, we show that such implicit averaging over phenotypes leads to…

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 processes of ecological interactions, dispersal and mutations shape the dynamics of biological communities, and analogous eco-evolutionary processes acting upon economic entities have been proposed to explain economic change. This…

How diversity is maintained in natural ecosystems is a long-standing question in Theoretical Ecology. By studying a system that combines ecological dynamics, heterogeneous interactions and spatial structure, we uncover a new mechanism for…

Much of our understanding of ecological and evolutionary mechanisms derives from analysis of low-dimensional models: with few interacting species, or few axes defining "fitness". It is not always clear to what extent the intuition derived…

One of the main properties of biological systems is modularity, which manifests itself at all levels of their organization, starting with the level of molecular genetics, ending with the level of whole organisms and their communities. In a…

Statistical averaging and asynchronous population dynamics as portfolio mechanisms are considered as the most important processes with which biodiversity contributes to ecosystem stability. However, portfolio theories usually regard…

We propose a model of multispecies populations surviving on distributed resources. System dynamics are investigated under changes in abiotic factors such as the climate, as parameterized through environmental temperature. In particular, we…

Complex evolving systems such as the biosphere, ecosystems and societies exhibit sudden collapses, for reasons that are only partially understood. Here we study this phenomenon using a mathematical model of a system that evolves under…

We introduce various models for cellulose bio-degradation by micro-organisms. Those models rely on complex chemical mechanisms, involve the structure of the cellulose chains and are allowed to depend on the phenotypical traits of the…

Cooperative behavior is widespread in nature, even though cooperating individuals always run the risk to be exploited by free-riders. Population structure effectively promotes cooperation given that a threshold in the level of cooperation…

Modern biological tools have made it possible to unequivocally demonstrate the deep relationship among species in terms of genes and basic molecular mechanisms. In addition, results from genetic, physical and physiological approaches…

Dispersal is a well recognized driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, and simultaneously an evolving trait. Dispersal evolution has traditionally been studied in single-species metapopulations so that it remains unclear how…