Evolutionary dynamics

About: Evolutionary dynamics is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3284 publications have been published within this topic receiving 152767 citations.

Evolutionary games and population dynamics

Abstract: Every form of behavior is shaped by trial and error. Such stepwise adaptation can occur through individual learning or through natural selection, the basis of evolution. Since the work of Maynard Smith and others, it has been realized how game theory can model this process. Evolutionary game theory replaces the static solutions of classical game theory by a dynamical approach centered not on the concept of rational players but on the population dynamics of behavioral programs. In this book the authors investigate the nonlinear dynamics of the self-regulation of social and economic behavior, and of the closely related interactions among species in ecological communities. Replicator equations describe how successful strategies spread and thereby create new conditions that can alter the basis of their success, i.e., to enable us to understand the strategic and genetic foundations of the endless chronicle of invasions and extinctions that punctuate evolution. In short, evolutionary game theory describes when to escalate a conflict, how to elicit cooperation, why to expect a balance of the sexes, and how to understand natural selection in mathematical terms. Comprehensive treatment of ecological and game theoretic dynamics Invasion dynamics and permanence as key concepts Explanation in terms of games of things like competition between species

The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change

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The Apportionment of Human Diversity

Abstract: It has always been obvious that organisms vary, even to those pre-Darwinian idealists who saw most individual variation as distorted shadows of an ideal. It has been equally apparent, even to those post-Darwinians for whom variation between individuals is the central fact of evolutionary dynamics, that variation is nodal, that individuals fall in clusters in the space of phenotypic description, and that those clusters, which we call demes, or races, or species, are the outcome of an evolutionary process acting on the individual variation. What has changed during the evolution of scientific thought, and is still changing, is our perception of the relative importance and extent of intragroup as opposed to intergroup variation. These changes have been in part a reflection of the uncovering of new biological facts, but only in part. They have also reflected general sociopolitical biases derived from human social experience and carried over into “scientific” realms. I have discussed elsewhere (Lewontin, 1968) long-term trends in evolutionary doctrine as a reflection of long-term changes in socioeconomic relations, but even in the present era of Darwinism there is considerable diversity of opinion about the amount or importance of intragroup variation as opposed to the variation between races and species. Muller, for example (1950), maintained that for sexually reproducing species, man in particular, there was very little genetic variation within populations and that most men were homozygous for wild-type genes at virtually all their loci.

A simple rule for the evolution of cooperation on graphs and social networks

Abstract: The evolution and maintenance of cooperative behaviour take some explaining. Cooperative groups can be undermined by ‘cheaters’ who selfishly exploit common resources, and a large body of theory predicts that cheats will usually displace cooperators. But a possible explanation of why cheats don't always prosper emerges from competition experiments between strains of yeast that act as cooperators and cheaters, competing for glucose and utilizing it either efficiently or ‘selfishly’. The results show that both strategies can coexist, because both are associated with costs and benefits. There is a cost to cheating; in this instance the production of fewer offspring than the opposition. A graphic — really — demonstration that natural selection can favour cooperation comes in a study by Ohtsuki et al. of the evolutionary dynamics of structured ‘virtual’ populations formed of points on a graph. Cooperation is favoured if the benefit of the altruistic act divided by the cost exceeds the average number of neighbours. So cooperation can evolve as a consequence of this ‘social viscosity’ even in the absence of reputation effects or strategic complexity. Natural selection generally favours cooperation if the benefit of the altruistic act divided by the cost exceeds the average number of neighbours, indicating that cooperation can evolve as a consequence of ‘social viscosity’, even in the absence of reputation effects or strategic complexity. A fundamental aspect of all biological systems is cooperation. Cooperative interactions are required for many levels of biological organization ranging from single cells to groups of animals1,2,3,4. Human society is based to a large extent on mechanisms that promote cooperation5,6,7. It is well known that in unstructured populations, natural selection favours defectors over cooperators. There is much current interest, however, in studying evolutionary games in structured populations and on graphs8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17. These efforts recognize the fact that who-meets-whom is not random, but determined by spatial relationships or social networks18,19,20,21,22,23,24. Here we describe a surprisingly simple rule that is a good approximation for all graphs that we have analysed, including cycles, spatial lattices, random regular graphs, random graphs and scale-free networks25,26: natural selection favours cooperation, if the benefit of the altruistic act, b, divided by the cost, c, exceeds the average number of neighbours, k, which means b/c > k. In this case, cooperation can evolve as a consequence of ‘social viscosity’ even in the absence of reputation effects or strategic complexity.

Adaptation from standing genetic variation

Abstract: Populations adapt to novel environments in two distinct ways: selection on pre-existing genetic variation and selection on new mutations. These alternative sources of beneficial alleles can result in different evolutionary dynamics and distinct genetic outcomes. Compared with new mutations, adaptation from standing genetic variation is likely to lead to faster evolution, the fixation of more alleles of small effect and the spread of more recessive alleles. There is potential to distinguish between adaptation from standing variation and that from new mutations by differences in the genomic signature of selection. Here we review these approaches and possible examples of adaptation from standing variation in natural populations. Understanding how the source of genetic variation affects adaptation will be integral for predicting how populations will respond to changing environments.