Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 21: Population Dynamics and Evolution

BP 21.3: Talk

Thursday, March 26, 2009, 18:00–18:15, HÜL 186

Quasispecies theory with frequency-dependent selection — •Benedikt Obermayer and Erwin Frey — Arnold Sommerfeld Center and Center of NanoScience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstr. 37, 80333 München

The Eigen model describes the evolution of macromolecules such as RNA under strong selection and large mutation rates in the limit of infinite population size. For mutation rates below a critical value (the error threshold), its stationary state is characterized by a broad mutant distribution about a fitness peak (the quasispecies). While so far mainly static fitness landscapes have been considered, the fitness of macromolecules depends also on the presence and nature of interaction partners, leading to dynamic and frequency-dependent selection. We analyze quasispecies theory for generic frequency-dependent fitness and obtain qualitatively new analytical and numerical results for the population distribution and the error threshold phenomenon.