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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Evolutionary dynamics in a varying environment: Continuous versus discrete noise

Ami Taitelbaum1, Robert West2, Mauro Mobilia2,*, and Michael Assaf1,3,†

  • 1Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
  • 2Department of Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
  • 3Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, Potsdam 14476, Germany

  • *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: m.mobilia@leeds.ac.uk
  • †Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: michael.assaf@mail.huji.ac.il
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Phys. Rev. Research 5, L022004 – Published 4 April, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L022004

Abstract

Environmental variations can significantly influence how populations compete for resources, and hence shape their evolution. Here, we study population dynamics subject to a fluctuating environment modeled by a varying carrying capacity changing continuously in time according to either binary random switches, or by being driven by a noise of continuous range. We focus on a prototypical example of two competing strains, one growing slightly slower than the other. By systematically comparing the effect of a binary versus continuously varying environment, we study how different noise statistics (mean, variance) influence the population size and fixation properties. We show that the slow strain fixation probability can be greatly enhanced for a continuously varying environment compared to binary switches, even when the first two moments of the carrying capacity coincide.

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Phys. Rev. Research 5, L022004– Published 4 April, 2023
  • Received 29 November 2022
  • Accepted 14 March 2023
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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