Growth or reproduction: emergence of an evolutionary optimal strategy

Authored by J. Grilli, S. Suweis, A. Maritan

Date Published: 2013-10

DOI: 10.1088/1742-5468/2013/10/p10020

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Modern ecology has re-emphasized the need for a quantitative understanding of the original `survival of the fittest theme' based on analysis of the intricate trade-offs between competing evolutionary strategies that characterize the evolution of life. This is key to the understanding of species coexistence and ecosystem diversity under the omnipresent constraint of limited resources. In this work we propose an agent-based model replicating a community of interacting individuals, e.g. plants in a forest, where all are competing for the same finite amount of resources and each competitor is characterized by a specific growth reproduction strategy. We show that such an evolution dynamics drives the system towards a stationary state characterized by an emergent optimal strategy, which in turn depends on the amount of available resources the ecosystem can rely on. We find that the share of resources used by individuals is power-law distributed with an exponent directly related to the optimal strategy. The model can be further generalized to devise optimal strategies in social and economical interacting systems dynamics.

Tags

interacting agent models stochastic processes models for evolution (theory)