Neo-darwinian evolution implies punctuated equilibria

Newman, Charles M.; Cohen, Joel E.; Kipnis, Claude

doi:10.1038/315400a0

Cited by 132 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…[72][73][74]. Our model also is inspired by the long-standing debate regarding punctuation versus gradualism in related fields (6,8,(75)(76)(77)(78)(79).…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution in leaps: The punctuated accumulation and loss of cultural innovations

Kolodny

Creanza

Feldman

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

139

185

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Archaeological accounts of cultural change reveal a fundamental conflict: Some suggest that change is gradual, accelerating over time, whereas others indicate that it is punctuated, with long periods of stasis interspersed by sudden gains or losses of multiple traits. Existing models of cultural evolution, inspired by models of genetic evolution, lend support to the former and do not generate trajectories that include large-scale punctuated change. We propose a simple model that can give rise to both exponential and punctuated patterns of gain and loss of cultural traits. In it, cultural innovation comprises several realistic interdependent processes that occur at different rates. The model also takes into account two properties intrinsic to cultural evolution: the differential distribution of traits among social groups and the impact of environmental change. In our model, a population may be subdivided into groups with different cultural repertoires leading to increased susceptibility to cultural loss, whereas environmental change may lead to rapid loss of traits that are not useful in a new environment. Taken together, our results suggest the usefulness of a concept of an effective cultural population size.T he breadth and diversity of cultural traits and their rates of accumulation have received a great deal of scholarly attention. Scientific knowledge in many fields appears to accumulate exponentially (1, 2). However, although the number of tool types in the archaeological record also seems to fit this pattern of exponential increase broadly (3), the number of tools and other cultural traits does not increase steadily and monotonically over time. Depending on the timescale studied, change in tool repertoire may appear punctuated and stepwise. Long, seemingly static, periods are interspersed between "cultural explosions," periods of sudden cultural accumulation (3-13). Further, in some populations, there is evidence that whole suites of cultural traits, such as the ability to make tools, clothing, and fire (14-16), may be lost, defying the general trend of cultural accumulation over time (4,7,8).Reasons for the sudden changes in hominid material culture in the archaeological record continue to be debated; they could be related to demographic factors (17), rapid cognitive change (18-21), relatively sudden changes in hand morphology (22, 23), or dramatic climatic shifts (10,(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). Further, intermediate-scale environmental change or migration to a new environment also could affect the accumulation and loss of traits that are primarily useful in specific environments (29-33). In addition, the relationship between the number of cultural traits in a population and population size has been debated (4,14,29,(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41); this relationship also might depend on the social learning strategies of the population (42, 43). Further, there could be a feedback process between the number of tools in a population and the population size: A larger population might be able to invent and retain m...

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“…[72][73][74]. Our model also is inspired by the long-standing debate regarding punctuation versus gradualism in related fields (6,8,(75)(76)(77)(78)(79).…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution in leaps: The punctuated accumulation and loss of cultural innovations

Kolodny

Creanza

Feldman

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

139

185

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The necessity of peak shifts for explaining the succession of biological forms in the paleontological data has been recognized for a long time 15 , but the underlying mechanisms (and even the relevance of the concept itself) remain controversial. Mathematical analysis of peak shifts driven by stochastic fluctuations in finite populations (genetic drift) generally show that the waiting time for the shift is vastly larger than the time required for the transition itself [79,80]. This can be argued to support the scenario of punctuated equilibrium in macroevolution [81], which states that evolutionary changes (including both speciation and phenotypic changes within a lineage) occur during relatively short time intervals which are separated by long periods of no discernible change (stasis).…”

Section: Peak Shifts and Punctuated Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation in Simple and Complex Fitness Landscapes

Jain

Krug

2007

Structural Approaches to Sequence Evolution

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“…Under conditions of strong selection and small mutation rate, such a population will rapidly climb a local fitness maximum, where it then resides for a long time, until a rare, large fluctuation allows it to cross the valley to a more favorable peak. At least in the limit of infinite population size [5], the mathematics of this process is closely related to physical problems such as noise-driven barrier crossing, tunneling [6] and variablerange hopping [7], and it is easy to show that the residence time at one peak can be vastly larger than the time required for the transition to the next [8]. In a rugged fitness landscape, the sequence of transitions forms an evolutionary trajectory, which probes the distribution of fitness peaks and the geometry of the landscape.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Punctuated evolution for the quasispecies model

Krug

Karl

2003

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

118

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Biological evolution in a sequence space with random fitnesses is studied within Eigen's quasispecies model. A strong selection limit is employed, in which the population resides at a single sequence at all times. Evolutionary trajectories start at a randomly chosen sequence and proceed to the global fitness maximum through a small number of intermittent jumps. The distribution of the total evolution time displays a universal power law tail with exponent -2. Simulations show that the evolutionary dynamics is very well represented by a simplified shell model, in which the subpopulations at local fitness maxima grow independently. The shell model allows for highly efficient simulations, and provides a simple geometric picture of the evolutionary trajectories.Biological evolution often displays a punctuated dynamical pattern, in the sense that quiescent periods of stasis alternate with bursts of rapid change. A variety of mechanisms for punctuation have been proposed, which operate on different levels of the tree of life. On the largest scales of macroevolution, coevolutionary avalanches may play a role, which have been associated with self-organized criticality [1]. On the level of populations, punctuation due to rare, beneficial mutations has been observed in evolution experiments with bacteria [2]. Similar behavior has been found in simulations of RNA evolution, where stasis corresponds to diffusion on a neutral network, and a punctuation event marks the transition to another network of higher fitness [3].Possibly the simplest interpretation of punctuated evolution is in terms of a homogeneous population, represented by a localized distribution in some phenotypic or genotypic space, which evolves in a static, multipeaked fitness landscape [4]. Under conditions of strong selection and small mutation rate, such a population will rapidly climb a local fitness maximum, where it then resides for a long time, until a rare, large fluctuation allows it to cross the valley to a more favorable peak. At least in the limit of infinite population size [5], the mathematics of this process is closely related to physical problems such as noise-driven barrier crossing, tunneling [6] and variablerange hopping [7], and it is easy to show that the residence time at one peak can be vastly larger than the time required for the transition to the next [8]. In a rugged fitness landscape, the sequence of transitions forms an evolutionary trajectory, which probes the distribution of fitness peaks and the geometry of the landscape.In this Letter we investigate the statistics of such evolutionary trajectories in the framework of Eigen's quasispecies model [9,10]. We consider a population of individuals, each characterized by a binary genomic sequence σ of length N , which reproduce asexually and mutate in discrete time t. The total number of sequences is S = 2 N . An individual with genotype σ leaves A(σ) offspring in the next generation, and point mutations occur with probability µ per site and generation. In a mean field approximation, wh...

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Neo-darwinian evolution implies punctuated equilibria

Cited by 132 publications

References 18 publications

Evolution in leaps: The punctuated accumulation and loss of cultural innovations

Evolution in leaps: The punctuated accumulation and loss of cultural innovations

Adaptation in Simple and Complex Fitness Landscapes

Punctuated evolution for the quasispecies model

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