Cellular Automata Model of Macroevolution

Abstract

In this paper I describe a cellular automaton model of a multi-species ecosystem, suitable for the study of emergent properties of macroevolution. Unlike majority of ecological models, the number of coexisting species is not fixed. Starting from one common ancestor they appear by "mutations" of existent species, and then survive or extinct depending on the balance of local ecological interactions. Monte-Carlo numerical simulations show that this model is able to qualitatively reproduce phenomena that have been observed in other models and in nature.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Fourteenth National Conference on Application of Mathematics in Biology and Medicine, Leszno 2008 (POLAND