2 research outputs found
Evolution and extinction dynamics in rugged fitness landscapes
Macroevolution is considered as a problem of stochastic dynamics in a system
with many competing agents. Evolutionary events (speciations and extinctions)
are triggered by fitness records found by random exploration of the agents'
fitness landscapes. As a consequence, the average fitness in the system
increases logarithmically with time, while the rate of extinction steadily
decreases. This dynamics is studied by numerical simulations and, in a simpler
mean field version, analytically. We also study the effect of externally added
`mass' extinctions. The predictions for various quantities of paleontological
interest (life-time distributions, distribution of event sizes and behavior of
the rate of extinction) are robust and in good agreement with available data.
Brief version of parts of this work have been published as Letters. (PRL 75,
2055, (1995) and PRL, 79, 1413, (1997))Comment: 30 pages 9 figures LaTe