Related papers: Simple models of evolution and extinction
These lectures contain a brief description of evolutionary models inspired by the statistical mechanics of disordered systems. After an introduction describing the Darwinian paradigm of evolving populations, the deterministic quasispecies…
We introduce a model of biological evolution where species evolve in response to biotic interactions and a fluctuating environmental stress. The species may either become extinct or mutate to acquire a new fitness value when the effective…
A mathematical model of interacting species filling ecological niches left by the extinction of others is introduced. Species organize themselves into genera of all sizes. The size of a genus on average grows linearly with its age,…
The Sole-Manrubia model of ``macro''-evolution describes the origination, evolution and extinction of species on geological time scales. We report some properties of this model which provide deep insight into this simple model which…
Mass extinction is a phenomenon in the history of life on Earth when a considerable number of species go extinct over a relatively short period of time. The magnitude of extinction varies between the events, the most well known are the…
The idea of this review is to connect the different models of evolution to those of biological ageing through Darwin's theory. We start with the Eigen model of quasispecies for microevolution, then introduce the Bak-Sneppen model for…
The evolution model with parallel mutation-selection scheme is solved for the case when selection is accompanied by base substitutions, insertions, and deletions. The fitness is assumed to be either a single-peak function (i.e., having one…
We present a quantitative model for the biological evolution of species body masses within large groups of related species, e.g., terrestrial mammals, in which body mass M evolves according to branching (speciation), multiplicative…
Motivated by the results of recent laboratory experiments (Yoshida et al. Nature, 424, 303-306 (2003)) as well as many earlier field observations that evolutionary changes can take place in ecosystems over relatively short ecological time…
Time evolution of number of species (genera, families, and others), population of them, and size distribution of present ones and life times are studied in terms of a new model, where population of each genetic taxon increases by a (random)…
The basic mechanics of evolution have been understood since Darwin. But debate continues over whether macroevolutionary phenomena are driven primary by the fitness structure of genotype space or by ecological interaction. In this paper we…
Self-Organized Criticality (SOC) phenomena could have a significant effect on the dynamics of ecosystems. The Bak-Sneppen (BS) model is a simple and robust model of biological evolution that exhibits punctuated equilibrium behavior. Here we…
In a complex community, species continuously adapt to each other. On rare occasions, the adaptation of a species can lead to the extinction of others, and even its own. "Adaptive dynamics" is the standard mathematical framework to describe…
The dynamics of the avalanche width in the evolution model is described using a random walk picture. In this approach the critical exponents for avalanche distribution, $\tau$, and avalanche average time, $\gamma$, are found to be the same…
Mathematical models of population extinction have a variety of applications in such areas as ecology, paleontology and conservation biology. Here we propose and investigate two types of sub-exponential models of population extinction.The…
We propose a stochastic model for evolution through mutation and natural selection of a population that evolves on a $\bbT_d^+$ tree. We think of this model as a way of describing the evolution fitness landscape of a population. We obtain…
We propose a minimal model of the dynamics of diversity -- replicator equations with extinction, invasion and mutation. We numerically study the behavior of this simple model and show that it displays completely different behavior from the…
In the present work we extend the Bak-Sneppen model for biological evolution by introducing local interactions between species. This ``environmental'' perturbation can modify the intrinsic fitness of each element of the ecology, leading to…
A new quantity, average fitness, is introduced in Bak-Sneppen evolution model. Through this new quantity, a new hierarchy of avalanches is observed in the evolution of Bak-Sneppen model. An exact gap equation, governing the…
It is usually believed that Darwin's theory leads to a smooth gradual evolution, so that mass extinctions must be caused by external shocks. However, it has recently been argued that mass extinctions arise from the intrinsic dynamics of…