Self-organized Critical Model Of Biological Evolution

TL;DR

This paper introduces a self-organized critical model of biological evolution where fitness updates follow a Gaussian distribution, revealing scaling behaviors and universality classes through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It presents a novel self-organized critical model of evolution based on fitness updates, demonstrating universality across different parameters.

Findings

Scaling behaviors observed in simulations

Model exhibits self-organized criticality

Different parameter sets belong to the same universality class

Abstract

A punctuated equilibrium model of biological evolution with relative fitness between different species being the fundamental driving force of evolution is introduced. Mutation is modeled as a fitness updating cellular automaton process where the change in fitness after mutation follows a Gaussian distribution with mean $x>0$ and standard deviation $\sigma$. Scaling behaviors are observed in our numerical simulation, indicating that the model is self-organized critical. Besides, the numerical experiment suggests that models with different $x$ and $\sigma$ belong to the same universality class. PACS numbers: 87.10.+e, 05.40.+j