Evolution of populations in a changing environment

Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron and Andrzej Pȩkalski

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 1999, vol. 269, issue 2, 527-535

Abstract: A model of a system of populations (metapopulation) is presented in which a population is characterized by a mean phenotype (or equivalently a continuous character) averaged over all individuals belonging to the population. The populations interact by exchanging genetic information (gene flow) and competing in the natural selection. We show, via Monte Carlo simulations, that the extinction rate of the populations depends crucially on two factors – interactions between the populations and the changes of the external conditions. Apart from big cataclysms, increased rate of extinctions in the system of interacting populations may be also provoked by small, but correlated, changes in the environment. As in the case of a constant habitat, which leads to a steady extinction rate, there are only three possible scenarios for the fate of the metapopulation.

Keywords: Evolution; Population dynamics; Monte Carlo simulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437199001776
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:269:y:1999:i:2:p:527-535

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(99)00177-6

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().