title: Food-web based unified model of macro- and microevolution.
abstract: We incorporate the generic hierarchical architecture of foodwebs into a "unified" model that describes both micro- and macroevolutions within a single theoretical framework. This model describes the microevolution in detail by accounting for the birth, ageing, and natural death of individual organisms as well as prey-predator interactions on a hierarchical dynamic food web. It also provides a natural description of random mutations and speciation (origination) of species as well as their extinctions. The distribution of lifetimes of species follows an approximate power law only over a limited regime.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India. debch@iitk.ac.in
authors.forename: Debashish
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chowdhury
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stauffer
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003163:Competitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D017753:Ecosystem; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020387:Food Chain; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011158:Population Growth; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D015996:Survival Rate