Berlin 2015 – scientific programme
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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 8: Poster
SOE 8.30: Poster
Monday, March 16, 2015, 18:00–20:00, Poster E
Finite populations evolving in fluctuating environments — •Peter Ashcroft1, Philipp M. Altrock2,3,4, and Tobias Galla1 — 1The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK — 2Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA — 3Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA — 4Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
We have shown that a mutant invading a finite population can exploit environmental noise. This noise modifies the payoff structure of the evolutionary game. A dynamic environment that randomly switches between two states can lead to a probability of fixation that is higher than in any of the individual environmental states. We provide an intuitive interpretation of this surprising effect. We develop a general theory to describe the fixation of a mutant in a population of wild-types in an environment that randomly switches between an arbitrary number of states. We also investigate stationary distributions when mutations are present in the dynamics. In this regime, we find two approximations of the stationary measure. One works well for rapid switching, the other for slowly fluctuating environments.
[1] Ashcroft, Altrock & Galla (2014) J. R. Soc. Interface 11: 20140663.