Related papers: Heterogeneity drives plasmid maintenance in large …
Given a large population of players, each player has three possible choices between option 1 or 2 or no option. The two options are equally favorable and the population has to reach consensus on one of the two options quickly and in a…
The assembly of ecological communities from a pool of species is central to ecology, but the effect of this process on properties of community interaction networks is still largely unknown. Here, we use a systematic analytical framework to…
Understanding the behaviors of ecological systems is challenging given their multi-faceted complexity. To proceed, theoretical models such as Lotka-Volterra dynamics with random interactions have been investigated by the dynamical…
Most population models assume that individuals within a given population are identical, that is, the fundamental role of variation is ignored. Here we develop a general approach to modeling heterogeneous populations with discrete…
Variability of motility behavior in populations of microbiological agents is a ubiquitous phenomenon even in the case of genetically identical cells. Accordingly, passive objects introduced into such biological systems and driven by them…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
Current theories about mechanisms promoting species co-existence in diverse communities assume that species only interact ecologically. Species are treated as discrete evolutionary entities, even though abundant empirical evidence indicates…
Metacommunity theory is considered a promising approach for explaining species diversity and food web complexity. Recently Pillai et al. proposed a simple modeling framework for the dynamics of food webs at the metacommunity level. Here, we…
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…
Adaptation to changing environments is a hallmark of biological systems. Diversity in traits is necessary for adaptation and can influence the survival of a population faced with novelty. In habitats that remain stable over many…
We investigate how the pattern of contacts between species in mutualistic ecosystems is affected by the phylogenetic proximity between the species of each guild. We develop several theoretical tools to measure that effect and we use them to…
Over the past century, nonlinear difference and differential equations have been used to understand conditions for species coexistence. However, these models fail to account for random fluctuations due to demographic and environmental…
Adhesion interactions mediated by multiple bond types are relevant for many biological and soft matter systems, including the adhesion of biological cells and functionalized colloidal particles to various substrates. To elucidate advantages…
Population dynamics is constrained by the environment, which needs to obey certain conditions to support population growth. We consider a standard model for the evolution of a single species population density, that includes reproduction,…
Criticality has been proposed as a mechanism for the emergence of complexity, life, and computation, as it exhibits a balance between robustness and adaptability. In classic models of complex systems where structure and dynamics are…
Two species with similar resource requirements respond in a characteristic way to variations in their habitat -- their abundances rise and fall in concert. We use this idea to learn how bacterial populations in the microbiota respond to…
A great number of biological organisms live in aqueous environments. Major evolutionary transitions, including the emergence of life itself, likely occurred in such environments. While the chemical aspects of the role of water in biology…
The microbiome constitutes a complex microbial ecology of interacting components that regulates important pathways in the host. Measurements of microbial abundances are key to learning the intricate network of interactions amongst microbes.…
Immotile microbes inhabit nearly every environment on Earth, from soils and sediments to food matrices -- yet how they disperse through these physically confining environments is poorly understood. Here, we show that immotile microbial…
The recent realization that entire communities fuse and separate (community coalescence) has led to a reappraisal of the forces determining species diversity and dynamics, especially in microbial communities where coalescence is likely…