Related papers: Describing the evolution and perturbations to biod…
Due to the conventional distinction between ecological (rapid) and evolutionary (slow)timescales, ecological and population models to date have typically ignored the effects of evolution. Yet the potential for rapid evolutionary change has…
We use a combination of analytic models and computer simulations to gain insight into the dynamics of evolution. Our results suggest that certain interesting phenomena should eventually emerge from the fossil record. For example, there…
Biodiversity widely observed in ecological systems is attributed to the dynamical balance among the competing species. The time-varying populations of the interacting species are often captured rather well by a set of deterministic…
The magnitude and variability of Earth's biodiversity have puzzled scientists ever since paleontologic fossil databases became available. We identify and study a model of interdependent species where both endogenous and exogenous impacts…
The margins within the geographic range of species are often specific in terms of ecological and evolutionary processes, and can strongly influence the species' reaction to climate change. One of the frequently observed features at range…
Ecosystems, which are intricate amalgams of biological communities and their surrounding environments, continually evolve under the influence of their myriad interactions. The world is currently facing intensifying environmental…
Biological and social systems are structured at multiple scales, and the incentives of individuals who interact in a group may diverge from the collective incentive of the group as a whole. Mechanisms to resolve this tension are responsible…
Highly-diverse ecosystems exhibit a broad distribution of population sizes and species turnover, where species at high and low abundances are exchanged over time. We show that these two features generically emerge in the fluctuating phase…
We study the statistics of ecosystems with a variable number of co-evolving species. The species interact in two ways: by prey-predator relationships and by direct competition with similar kinds. The interaction coefficients change slowly…
A new delay equation is introduced to describe the punctuated evolution of complex nonlinear systems. A detailed analytical and numerical investigation provides the classification of all possible types of solutions for the dynamics of a…
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…
A central feature of complex systems is the relevance and entanglement of different levels of description. For instance, the dynamics of ecosystems can be alternatively described in terms of large ecological processes and classes of…
We study the evolution of the network properties of a populated network embedded in a genotype space characterised by either a low or a high number of potential links, with particular emphasis on the connectivity and clustering. Evolution…
A new model to investigate environmental effects of genetically distinguishable predators is presented. The Holling type II response function, modelling feeding satiation, leads to persistent system's oscillations, as in classical…
We study a model of a multi-species ecosystem described by Lotka-Volterra-like equations. Interactions among species form a network whose evolution is determined by the dynamics of the model. Numerical simulations show power-law…
We introduce a new model for large scale evolution and extinction in which species are organized into food chains. The system evolves by two processes: origination/speciation and extinction. In the model, extinction of a given species can…
We investigate the formation of stable ecological networks where many species share the same resource. We show that such stable ecosystem naturally occurs as a result of extinctions. We obtain an analytical relation for the number of…
Evolution is a dynamic process. The two classical forces of evolution are mutation and selection. Assuming small mutation rates, evolution can be predicted based solely on the fitness differences between phenotypes. Predicting an…
Longevity of a taxonomic group is an important issue in understanding the dynamics of evolution. In this respect a key observation is that genera, families or orders can each be assigned a characteristic average lifetime [Van Valen, L.,…
Understanding the relationship between taxonomic and morphological changes is important in identifying the reasons for accelerated morphological diversification early in the history of animal phyla. Here, a simple general model describing…