title: Unification of small and large time scales for biological evolution: deviations from power law.
abstract: We develop a unified model that describes both "micro" and "macro" evolutions within a single theoretical framework. The ecosystem is described as a dynamic network; the population dynamics at each node of this network describes the "microevolution" over ecological time scales (i.e., birth, ageing, and natural death of individual organisms), while the appearance of new nodes, the slow changes of the links, and the disappearance of existing nodes accounts for the "macroevolution" over geological time scales (i.e., the origination, evolution, and extinction of species). In contrast to several earlier claims in the literature, we observe strong deviations from power law in the regime of long lifetimes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India.
authors.forename: Debashish
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chowdhury
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stauffer
authors.forename: Ambarish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kunwar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D008954:Models, Biological