The remarkable discreteness of being

TL;DR

This paper reviews how the discrete and stochastic nature of life events like reproduction and death influence biological phenomena such as species distribution, biodiversity, and evolution of altruism, revealing counter-intuitive effects.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of discreteness and randomness in biological processes and discusses their impact on ecological and evolutionary patterns.

Findings

Discrete events affect species spatial distribution

Stochasticity influences biodiversity levels

Randomness impacts evolution of altruistic behavior

Abstract

Life is a discrete, stochastic phenomena : for a biological organism, the time of the two most important events of its life (reproduction and death) is random and these events change the number of individuals of the species by single units. These facts can have surprising, counter-intuitive consequences. I review here three examples where these facts play, or could play, important roles : the spatial distribution of species, the biodiversity and the (Darwinian) evolution of altruistic behavior.