The Effect of Sporadic Dormancy on Adaptation under Natural Selection: A Formal Theory

TL;DR

This paper presents a formal theory showing that sporadic dormancy can significantly improve survival and adaptation of rare or weak species under natural selection, reducing extinction risk and increasing fitness gains.

Contribution

It introduces a computational simulation model demonstrating how sporadic dormancy enhances adaptation and survival in species facing unfavorable environments.

Findings

Higher dormancy fractions lead to greater fitness gains.

Sporadic dormancy reduces extinction probability.

Weak species benefit from dormancy in stable environments.

Abstract

Researchers puzzle over questions as to how rare species survive extinction, and why a significant proportion of microbial taxa are dormant. Computational simulation modeling by a genetic algorithm provides some answers. First, a weak/rare/lowly-adapted species can obtain significantly higher fitness by resorting to sporadic dormancy; thereby the probability of extinction is reduced. Second, the extent of fitness-gain is greater when a higher fraction of the population is dormant; thus, the probability of species survival is greater for higher prevalence of dormancy. In sum, even when the environment is unfavorable initially and remains unchanged, sporadic dormancy enables a weak/rare species enhance the extent of favorable adaptation over time, successfully combating the forces of natural selection.