Strong Amplifiers of Natural Selection: Proofs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the conditions under which certain graphs act as strong amplifiers of natural selection, providing new theoretical bounds and constructions for graphs that ensure high fixation probabilities in structured populations.

Contribution

It establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for strong amplification in the modified Moran process and constructs weighted graphs with diameter constraints that serve as strong amplifiers.

Findings

Unweighted, self-loop-free graphs have limited fixation probability.

Bounded-degree, unweighted, self-loop-free graphs are similarly limited.

Weighted graphs with small diameter can be strong amplifiers for both initializations.

Abstract

We consider the modified Moran process on graphs to study the spread of genetic and cultural mutations on structured populations. An initial mutant arises either spontaneously (aka \emph{uniform initialization}), or during reproduction (aka \emph{temperature initialization}) in a population of $n$ individuals, and has a fixed fitness advantage $r>1$ over the residents of the population. The fixation probability is the probability that the mutant takes over the entire population. Graphs that ensure fixation probability of~1 in the limit of infinite populations are called \emph{strong amplifiers}. Previously, only a few examples of strong amplifiers were known for uniform initialization, whereas no strong amplifiers were known for temperature initialization. In this work, we study necessary and sufficient conditions for strong amplification, and prove negative and positive results. We show that for temperature initialization, graphs that are unweighted and/or self-loop-free have fixation probability upper-bounded by $1-1/f(r)$, where $f(r)$ is a function linear in $r$. Similarly, we show that for uniform initialization, bounded-degree graphs that are unweighted and/or self-loop-free have fixation probability upper-bounded by $1-1/g(r,c)$, where $c$ is the degree bound and $g(r,c)$ a function linear in $r$. Our main positive result complements these negative results, and is as follows: every family of undirected graphs with (i)~self loops and (ii)~diameter bounded by $n^{1-\epsilon}$, for some fixed $\epsilon>0$, can be assigned weights that makes it a strong amplifier, both for uniform and temperature initialization.