Viral Evolution Under Physical Constraints: Decay, Mutation, and Transmission as a Constrained Optimization Problem

TL;DR

This paper presents a unifying framework modeling viral evolution as a constrained optimization problem influenced by physical decay, immune pressure, mutation robustness, and transmission architecture, explaining diverse viral strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive physical and evolutionary model that predicts viral structural and transmission strategies as solutions to optimization constraints.

Findings

Airborne viruses are predicted to be structurally simple and chemically stable.

Complex viruses encode immune-modulatory machinery to tolerate environmental decay.

Seasonality arises naturally from thermally activated viral decay.

Abstract

Viruses display striking diversity in structure, transmission mode, immune interaction, and evolutionary behavior. Despite this diversity, viral strategies are not unconstrained. Here we present a unifying framework that treats viral evolution as a problem of constrained optimization governed by physical decay, immune pressure, mutation robustness, and transmission architecture. We model virions as multi-component physical systems subject to irreversible environmental failure and viruses as replicators operating under immune-driven selection and mutation-selection balance. Within this framework, major viral transmission strategies arise as necessary solutions rather than taxonomic accidents. Environmentally transmitted and airborne viruses are predicted to be structurally simple, chemically stable, and reliant on replication volume rather than immune suppression. Structurally complex viruses tolerate rapid environmental decay by encoding immune-modulatory machinery, latency, or persistent replication, at the cost of reduced mutation robustness. Temperature-dependent seasonality emerges naturally from the thermally activated nature of viral decay, without invoking host behavior.