Related papers: Can a rudderless species survive?
We consider a population of particles with unit life length. Dying each particle produces offspring whose size depends on the random environment specifying the reproduction law of all particles of the given generation and on the number of…
We introduce an interacting particle system which models the inherited sterility method. Individuals evolve on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ according to a contact process with parameter $\lambda>0$. With probability $p \in [0,1]$ an offspring is fertile…
'Most habitable worlds in the cosmos will have no remotely detectable signs of life' is proposed as a biological hypothesis to be tested in studies of exoplanets. Habitable planets could be discovered elsewhere in the Universe, yet there…
A classical view of speciation is that reproductive isolation arises as a by-product of genetic divergence. Here, individual-based simulations are used to evaluate whether the mechanisms implied by this view may result in rapid speciation…
We calculate survival probability of a special state which couples randomly to a regular or chaotic environment. The environment is modelled by a suitably chosen random matrix ensemble. The exact results exhibit non--perturbative features…
Despite numerous attempts, no exomoon has firmly been confirmed to date. New missions like CHEOPS aim to characterize previously detected exoplanets, and potentially to discover exomoons. In order to optimize search strategies, we need to…
We consider the dynamics of a population spatially structured in colonies that are vulnerable to catastrophic events occurring at random times, which randomly reduce their population size and compel survivors to disperse to neighboring…
Which factors govern the evolution of mutation rates and emergence of species? Here, we address this question using a first principles model of life where population dynamics of asexual organisms is coupled to molecular properties and…
We consider branching like models in local, global and fixed environments. We show that survival is more likely in a locally changing environment than in a fixed environment and that survival in a fixed environment is itself more likely…
Given a sufficiently large universe, numerous civilizations almost surely exist. Some of these civilizations will be short-lived and die out relatively early in their development, i.e., before having the chance to spread to other planets.…
Species trees represent the historical divergences of populations or species, while gene trees trace the ancestry of individual gene copies sampled within those populations. In cases involving rapid speciation, gene trees with topologies…
Depending on multiple parameters, soft robots can exhibit different modes of locomotion that are difficult to model numerically. As a result, improving their performance is complex, especially in small-scale systems characterized by low…
We study a discrete time spatial branching system on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ with logistic-type local regulation at each deme depending on a weighted average of the population in neighboring demes. We show that the system survives for all time with…
Genomic complexity can be used as a clock with which the moment in which life originated can be measured. Some authors who have studied this problem have come to the conclusion that it is not possible that terrestrial life originated here…
The relative abundances of exotic environments provides us with (uninformed) bounds on the habitability of those environments relative to our own, on the basis that our presence here is not too atypical. For instance, since red stars…
Cyclic dominance between species may yield spiral waves that are known to provide a mechanism enabling persistent species coexistence. This observation holds true even in presence of spatial heterogeneity in the form of quenched disorder.…
In island biogeography, it is widely accepted that species richness on island depends on the area and isolation of the island as well as the species pool on the mainland. Delavaux et al. (2024) suggest that species richness on oceanic…
We review how tides may impact the habitability of terrestrial-like planets. If such planets form around low-mass stars, then planets in the circumstellar habitable zone will be close enough to their host stars to experience strong tidal…
A central goal in ecology is to understand how biodiversity is maintained. Previous theoretical works have employed the rock-paper-scissors (RPS) game as a toy model, demonstrating that population mobility is crucial in determining the…
Nearly neutral theory predicts that evolutionary processes will differ in small populations compared to large populations, a key point of concern for endangered species. The nearly-neutral threshold, the span of neutral variation, and the…