dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaEvolution in time-dependent fitness landscapes
| Authors | Claus O. Wilke |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/9811021 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9811021 |
Abstract
Evolution in changing environments is an important, but little studied aspect of the theory of evolution. The idea of adaptive walks in fitness landscapes has triggered a vast amount of research and has led to many important insights about the progress of evolution. Nevertheless, the small step to time-dependent fitness landscapes has most of the time not been taken. In this work, some elements of a theory of adaptive walks on changing fitness landscapes are proposed, and are subsequently applied to and tested on a simple family of time-dependent fitness landscapes, the oscillating NK landscapes, also introduced here. For these landscapes, the parameter governing the evolutionary dynamics is the fraction of static fitness contributions f_S. For small f_S, local optima are virtually non-existent, and the adaptive walk constantly encounters new genotypes, whereas for large f_S, the evolutionary dynamics reduces to the one on static fitness landscapes. Evidence is presented that the transition between the two regimes is a 2nd order phase transition akin a percolation transition. For f_S close to the critical point, a rich dynamics can be observed. The adaptive walk gets trapped in noisy limit cycles, and transitions from one noisy limit cycle to another occur sporadically.
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"abstract": "Evolution in changing environments is an important, but little studied aspect\nof the theory of evolution. The idea of adaptive walks in fitness landscapes\nhas triggered a vast amount of research and has led to many important insights\nabout the progress of evolution. Nevertheless, the small step to time-dependent\nfitness landscapes has most of the time not been taken. In this work, some\nelements of a theory of adaptive walks on changing fitness landscapes are\nproposed, and are subsequently applied to and tested on a simple family of\ntime-dependent fitness landscapes, the oscillating NK landscapes, also\nintroduced here. For these landscapes, the parameter governing the evolutionary\ndynamics is the fraction of static fitness contributions f_S. For small f_S,\nlocal optima are virtually non-existent, and the adaptive walk constantly\nencounters new genotypes, whereas for large f_S, the evolutionary dynamics\nreduces to the one on static fitness landscapes. Evidence is presented that the\ntransition between the two regimes is a 2nd order phase transition akin a\npercolation transition. For f_S close to the critical point, a rich dynamics\ncan be observed. The adaptive walk gets trapped in noisy limit cycles, and\ntransitions from one noisy limit cycle to another occur sporadically.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/9811021",
"authors": [
"Claus O. Wilke"
],
"categories": [
"physics.bio-ph",
"adap-org",
"nlin.AO",
"q-bio"
],
"title": "Evolution in time-dependent fitness landscapes",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9811021"
},
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