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Darwin's log: a toy model of speciation and extinction

Part of: Special processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

David Aldous
David Aldous*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
*
∗Postal address: Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
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Abstract

Stochastic models for the origin and extinction of species have been rather neglected in applied probability. As an alternative to modelling speciation and extinction as intrinsically random, I shall describe and show simulations of a rulebased model. This involves mathematical representations of notions such as genetic type of species, environmental niche, fitness of a species in a niche, and adaptation. There are underlying random mechanisms for changes of niche sizes and for disconnection and reconnection of geographical regions, and these ultimately drive the evolution of species.

Other approaches to mathematical modelling of evolution are briefly mentioned.

Keywords

EVOLUTIONSTOCHASTIC MODELFITNESS

MSC classification

Primary: 60K99: None of the above, but in this section
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Applied Probability , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 279 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1995 

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Footnotes

Research supported by N.S.F. Grant DMS92-24857 and by the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science.

Presented as the second Applied Probability Lecture in Sheffield, July 1993.

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