Fixation probability in evolutionary dynamics on switching temporal networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how switching temporal networks influence the fixation probability in evolutionary dynamics, revealing that such networks tend to be less amplifying and often act as suppressors compared to static networks.

Contribution

It extends birth-death processes to switching temporal networks and demonstrates that switching often reduces amplification, highlighting new effects of temporal variability.

Findings

Switching networks are generally less amplifying than static networks.

Most small switching networks act as suppressors.

Switching tends to decrease the fixation probability compared to static cases.

Abstract

Population structure has been known to substantially affect evolutionary dynamics. Networks that promote the spreading of fitter mutants are called amplifiers of natural selection, and those that suppress the spreading of fitter mutants are called suppressors. Research in the past two decades has found various families of amplifiers while suppressors still remain somewhat elusive. It has also been discovered that most networks are amplifiers under the birth-death updating combined with uniform initialization, which is a standard condition assumed widely in the literature. In the present study, we extend the birth-death processes to temporal (i.e., time-varying) networks. For the sake of tractability, we restrict ourselves to switching temporal networks, in which the network structure alternates between two static networks at constant time intervals. We show that, in a majority of cases, switching networks are less amplifying than both of the two static networks constituting the switching networks. Furthermore, most small switching networks are suppressors, which contrasts to the case of static networks.