Noise driven evolutionary waves.

ABSTRACT: Adaptation in spatially extended populations entails the propagation of evolutionary novelties across habitat ranges. Driven by natural selection, beneficial mutations sweep through the population in a "wave of advance". The standard model for these traveling waves, due to R. Fisher and A. Kolmogorov, plays an important role in many scientific areas besides evolution, such as ecology, epidemiology, chemical kinetics, and recently even in particle physics. Here, we extend the Fisher-Kolmogorov model to account for mutations that confer an increase in the density of the population, for instance as a result of an improved metabolic efficiency. We show that these mutations invade by the action of random genetic drift, even if the mutations are slightly deleterious. The ensuing class of noise-d

SUBMITTER: Hallatschek O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3053316 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature