Related papers: Ecolab, Webworld and self-organisation
Living systems operate far from equilibrium, yet few general frameworks provide global bounds on biological transients. In high-dimensional biological networks like ecosystems, long transients arise from the separate timescales of…
Abbreviated Abstract: The objective of Evolutionary Computation is to solve practical problems (e.g. optimization, data mining) by simulating the mechanisms of natural evolution. This thesis addresses several topics related to adaptation…
Mathematical modelling of the evolution of the size-spectrum dynamics in aquatic ecosystems was discovered to be a powerful tool to have a deeper insight into impacts of human- and environmental driven changes on the marine ecosystem. In…
We introduce an Interaction and Trade-off based Eco-Evolutionary Model (ITEEM), in which species are competing for common resources in a well-mixed system, and their evolution in interaction trait space is subject to a life-history…
Quantifying the spatial organization of human settlements is fundamental to understanding the complexity of urban systems. However, the quantitative patterns of the distribution of villages, towns, and cities that lie between random and…
Games with environmental feedback have become a crucial area of study across various scientific domains, modelling the dynamic interplay between human decisions and environmental changes, and highlighting the consequences of our choices on…
Species coexistence is one of the central themes in modern ecology. Coexistence is a prerequisite of biological diversity. However, the question arises how biodiversity can be reconciled with the statement of competition theory, which…
It is well known that life on Earth alters its environment over evolutionary and geological timescales. An important open question is whether this is a result of evolutionary optimization or a universal feature of life. In the latter case,…
Evolution and learning are two of the fundamental mechanisms by which life adapts in order to survive and to transcend limitations. These biological phenomena inspired successful computational methods such as evolutionary algorithms and…
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…
In this paper I describe a cellular automaton model of a multi-species ecosystem, suitable for the study of emergent properties of macroevolution. Unlike majority of ecological models, the number of coexisting species is not fixed. Starting…
The evolution of the biosphere unfolds as a luxuriant generative process of new living forms and functions. Organisms adapt to their environment, exploit novel opportunities that are created in this continuous blooming dynamics. Affordances…
We study the probabilities of evolution based on random mutations and natural selection. We conclude that evolution to multicellular eukaryots, or even prokaryots, is unlikely to be the result of only random mutations. Complex organisms…
The two major approaches to studying macroevolution in deep time are the fossil record and reconstructed relationships among extant taxa from molecular data. Results based on one approach sometimes conflict with those based on the other,…
Social institutions are systems of shared norms and rules that regulate people's behaviors, often emerging without external enforcement. They provide criteria to distinguish cooperation from defection and establish rules to sustain…
This is the second of two papers dedicated to the relationship between population models of competition and biodiversity. Here we consider species assembly models where the population dynamics is kept far from fixed points through the…
The rise in online social networking has brought about a revolution in social relations. However, its effects on offline interactions and its implications for collective well-being are still not clear and are under-investigated. We study…
Social evolutionary theory seeks to explain increases in the scale and complexity of human societies, from origins to present. Over the course of the twentieth century, social evolutionary theory largely fell out of favor as a way of…
Here we provide a detailed analysis, along with some extensions and additonal investigations, of a recently proposed self-organised model for the evolution of complex networks. Vertices of the network are characterised by a fitness variable…
The study of biological cells in terms of mesoscopic, nonequilibrium, nonlinear, stochastic dynamics of open chemical systems provides a paradigm for other complex, self-organizing systems with ultra-fast stochastic fluctuations, short-time…