Relating high dimensional stochastic complex systems to low-dimensional intermittency

TL;DR

This paper investigates how complex high-dimensional stochastic models in evolutionary ecology exhibit low-dimensional intermittent dynamics at a macroscopic scale, revealing potential simplifications in understanding their long-term behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates that high-dimensional models like the Tangled Nature Model can be effectively described by low-dimensional maps exhibiting intermittency, advancing the interpretation of complex evolutionary dynamics.

Findings

Low-dimensional maps capture intermittent behavior of high-dimensional models.

Successive tangent bifurcations generate realistic time evolution patterns.

Intermittent dynamics are linked to tangent bifurcations in simplified models.

Abstract

We evaluate the implication and outlook of an unanticipated simplification in the macroscopic behavior of two high-dimensional sto-chastic models: the Replicator Model with Mutations and the Tangled Nature Model (TaNa) of evolutionary ecology. This simplification consists of the apparent display of low-dimensional dynamics in the non-stationary intermittent time evolution of the model on a coarse-grained scale. Evolution on this time scale spans generations of individuals, rather than single reproduction, death or mutation events. While a local one-dimensional map close to a tangent bifurcation can be derived from a mean-field version of the TaNa model, a nonlinear dynamical model consisting of successive tangent bifurcations generates time evolution patterns resembling those of the full TaNa model. To advance the interpretation of this finding, here we consider parallel results on a game-theoretic version of the TaNa model that in discrete time yields a coupled map lattice. This in turn is represented, a la Langevin, by a one-dimensional nonlinear map. Among various kinds of behaviours we obtain intermittent evolution associated with tangent bifurcations. We discuss our results.