The Penna model for biological ageing on a lattice: spatial consequences of child-care

TL;DR

This paper extends the Penna model for biological ageing by incorporating spatial lattice dynamics and child-care strategies, revealing how these factors influence population distribution and survival rates.

Contribution

It introduces a spatial lattice into the Penna model and analyzes the effects of different child-care strategies on population distribution and survival.

Findings

Child-care strategies lead to highly non-uniform population distributions.

Spatial considerations significantly affect survival rates compared to non-spatial models.

Abstract

We introduce a square lattice into the Penna bit-string model for biological ageing and study the evolution of the spatial distribution of the population considering different strategies of child-care. Two of the strategies are related to the movements of a whole family on the lattice: in one case the mother cannot move if she has any child younger than a given age, and in the other case if she moves, she brings these young children with her. A stronger condition has also been added to the second case, considering that young children die with a higher probability if their mothers die, this probability decreasing with age. We show that a highly non uniform occupation can be obtained when child-care is considered, even for an uniform initial occupation per site. We also compare the standard survival rate of the model with that obtained when the spacial lattice is considered (without any kind of child-care).