Related papers: Simple models of evolution and extinction
We study a mechanistic mathematical model of extinction and coexistence in a generic hunter-prey ecosystem. The model represents typical scenarios of human invasion and environmental change, characteristic of the late Pleistocene,…
We study the simple evolutionary process in which we repeatedly find the least fit agent in a population of agents and give it a new fitness which is chosen independently at random from a specified distribution. We show that many of the…
The study of interactions between multiple species in an ecosystem is an active and impactful direction of inquiry. This is true in particular for fragile systems in which even small perturbations of their functional parameters can produce…
Surface growth in random media is usually governed by both the surface tension and the random local forces. Simulations on lattices mimic the former by imposing a maximum gradient $m$ on the surface heights, and the latter by site-dependent…
The evolution of states of a spatial ecological model is studied. The model describes an infinite population of point entities placed in $\mathbb{R}^d$ which reproduce themselves at distant points (disperse) and die with rate that includes…
With the rise of computers, simulation models have emerged beside the more traditional statistical and mathematical models as a third pillar for ecological analysis. Broadly speaking, a simulation model is an algorithm, typically…
The short-time and long-time dynamics of the Bak-Sneppen model of biological evolution are investigated using the damage spreading technique. By defining a proper Hamming distance measure, we are able to make it exhibits an initial…
Multispecies ecosystems modelled by generalized Lotka-Volterra equations exhibit stationary population abundances, where large number of species often coexist. Understanding the precise conditions under which this is at all feasible and…
The Bak--Sneppen model is an abstract representation of a biological system that evolves according to the Darwinian principles of random mutation and selection. The species in the system are characterized by a numerical fitness value…
Twenty years ago, after analysing palaeontological data, Raup and Sepkoski suggested that mass extinctions on Earth appear cyclically in time with a period of approximately 26 million years (My). To explain the 26My period, a number of…
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…
Despite tremendous interest in the topic and decades of research, the origins of the major losses of biodiversity in the history of life on Earth remain elusive. A variety of possible causes for these mass-extinction events have been…
Frequency-dependent selection reflects the interaction between different species as they battle for limited resources in their environment. In a stochastic evolutionary game the species relative fitnesses guides the evolutionary dynamics…
We present a simple model for describing the dynamics of the interaction between a homogeneous population or society, and the natural resources and reserves that the society needs for its survival. The model is formulated in terms of…
We study models of biological evolution and investigate a key factor to yield self-organized criticality (SOC). The Bak-Sneppen (BS) model is the most basic model that shows an SOC state, which is developed based on minimal and plausible…
Here we present extinction, extirpation and coexistence conditions where / when two communities combine. We consider one specific model where two communities coalesce, and another model where the communities coexist side by side, blending…
We propose a class of evolutionary models that involves an arbitrary exchangeable process as the breeding process and different selection schemes. In those models, a new genome is born according to the breeding process, and then a genome is…
The spatio-temporal dynamics of a population present one of the most fascinating aspects and challenges for ecological modelling. In this article we review some simple mathematical models, based on one dimensional…
We consider the system of reaction-diffusion equations proposed in [8] as a population dynamics model. The first equation stands for the population density and models the ecological effects, namely dispersion and growth with a Allee effect…
We study the ABC model (A + B --> 2B, B + C --> 2C, C + A --> 2A), and its counterpart: the three--component neutral drift model (A + B --> 2A or 2B, B + C --> 2B or 2C, C + A --> 2C or 2A.) In the former case, the mean field approximation…