title: Punctuated equilibrium and shock waves in molecular models of biological evolution.
abstract: We consider the dynamics in infinite population evolution models with a general symmetric fitness landscape. We find shock waves, i.e., discontinuous transitions in the mean fitness, in evolution dynamics even with smooth fitness landscapes, which means that the search for the optimal evolution trajectory is more complicated. These shock waves appear in the case of positive epistasis and can be used to represent punctuated equilibria in biological evolution during long geological time scales. We find exact analytical solutions for discontinuous dynamics at the large-genome-length limit and derive optimal mutation rates for a fixed fitness landscape to send the population from the initial configuration to some final configuration in the fastest way.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan; Yerevan Physics Institute, Alikhanian Brothers Str. 2, Yerevan 375036, Armenia; and National Center for Theoretical Sciences: Physics Division, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Saakian
authors.affiliation: Yerevan Engineering University, Teryan St., 105, Yerevan 9, Armenia.
authors.forename: Makar H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Ghazaryan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chin-Kun
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation