Effects of population growth on the success of invading mutants.
Understanding if and how mutants reach fixation in populations is an important question in evolutionary biology. We study the impact of population growth has on the success of mutants. To systematically understand the effects of growth we decouple competition from reproduction; competition follows a birth-death process and is governed by an evolutionary game, while growth is determined by an externally controlled branching rate. In stochastic simulations we find non-monotonic behaviour of the fixation probability of mutants as the speed of growth is varied; the right amount of growth can lead to a higher success rate. These results are observed in both coordination and coexistence game scenarios, and we find that the 'one-third law' for coordination games can break down in the presence of growth. We also propose a simplified description in terms of stochastic differential equations to approximate the individual-based model.
ETH Zürich, Institut für Integrative Biologie, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland. Electronic address: peter.ashcroft@env.ethz.ch.
Peter
P
Ashcroft
Theoretical Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Electronic address: c.smith26@newcastle.ac.uk.
Cassandra E R
CER
Smith
Theoretical Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Electronic address: m.garrod15@imperial.ac.uk.
Matthew
M
Garrod
Theoretical Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Electronic address: tobias.galla@manchester.ac.uk.
Tobias
T
Galla
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003163:Competitive Behavior; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation; D011158:Population Growth; D011336:Probability; D012098:Reproduction; D013269:Stochastic Processes
Evolutionary game theory; Fixation probability; Growing populations; One-third law