972 research outputs found
Competition-driven evolution of organismal complexity
Non-uniform rates of morphological evolution and evolutionary increases in
organismal complexity, captured in metaphors like "adaptive zones", "punctuated
equilibrium" and "blunderbuss patterns", require more elaborate explanations
than a simple gradual accumulation of mutations. Here we argue that non-uniform
evolutionary increases in phenotypic complexity can be caused by a
threshold-like response to growing ecological pressures resulting from
evolutionary diversification at a given level of complexity. Acquisition of a
new phenotypic feature allows an evolving species to escape this pressure but
can typically be expected to carry significant physiological costs. Therefore,
the ecological pressure should exceed a certain level to make such an
acquisition evolutionarily successful. We present a detailed quantitative
description of this process using a microevolutionary competition model as an
example. The model exhibits sequential increases in phenotypic complexity
driven by diversification at existing levels of complexity and the resulting
increase in competitive pressure, which can push an evolving species over the
barrier of physiological costs of new phenotypic features.Comment: Open PDF with Acrobat to see movies, 22 pages, 9 figure
A Process Modelling Success Model: Insights from a Case Study
Contemporary concepts such as Business Pro cess Re-engineering and Process Innovation emphasize the importance of process-oriented management concepts as a businesses paradigm. Large scaled multimillion-dollar implementations of Enterpri se Systems explicitly and implicitly state the importance of process modeling and its contribution to the success of these project. While there has been much research and publications on alterna tive process modeling techniques and tools, little attention has focused on post-hoc evaluation of actual process modeling activities or on deriving comprehensive guidelines on âhow-toâ conduct process modeling effectively. This study aims at addressing this gap. A comprehensive a priori pro cess modeling success model has been derived and this paper reports on the results obtained from a detailed case study at a leading Australian logistics service provider, which was conducted with the aim of testing and re-specifying the model
On the evolutionary emergence of predation
In models for the evolution of predation from initially purely competitive
species interactions, the propensity of predation is most often assumed to be a
direct consequence of the relative morphological and physiological traits of
interacting species. Here we explore a model in which predation ability is an
independently evolving phenotypic feature, so that even when the relative
morphological or physiological traits allow for predation, predation only
occurs if the predation ability of individuals has independently evolved to
high enough values. In addition to delineating the conditions for the
evolutionary emergence of predation, the model reproduces stationary and
non-stationary multilevel food webs with the top predators not necessarily
having size superiority.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, typos correcte
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