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PubMed · 11913102

Is the "small world" effect relevant to evolution?

F Bagnoli·M Bezzi
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Abstract

Mutations and selection are the driving forces of biological evolution. We model here the simplest case: an evolving population of asexual organisms. We consider two kinds of mutations: point mutations, corresponding to local displacements in the genotypic space, and all the other genotypic rearrangements, equivalent to long-range jumps. We show that a small-world effect is present in evolution: even a small fraction of quenched long-range jumps makes the results indistinguishable from those obtained by assuming all mutations equiprobable. We apply this result to the evolution of a population on a smooth fitness landscape, showing that the equilibrium distribution is a Boltzmann one, in which the fitness plays the role of an energy, and mutations that of a temperature.

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Evolution, MolecularModels, MolecularMutationJournal Article

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F Bagnoli, M Bezzi. Is the "small world" effect relevant to evolution?. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11913102/

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