From The Evolution Of Altruism To Pandemic Extinction Of Human Civilization

Yaneer Bar-Yam, President of the New England Complex Systems Institute

We will discuss studies of the dramatic differences between evolution in well mixed and spatially dispersed populations. These studies reveal new insights about the gene-centered view of evolution, fitness, altruism and social cooperation through signaling between organisms, and the diversity of evolving populations. They also reveal frightening implications of globalization and the present dangers of pandemic based extinctions.

References: http://www.necsi.org/research/evoeco
http://www.necsi.org/research/evoeco/papers.html

E. M. Rauch and Y. Bar-Yam, Long-range interactions and evolutionary stability in a predator-prey system, Physical Review E 73, 020903, 2006.
E. M. Rauch and Y. Bar-Yam: PNAS 102, pp. 9826-9829, July 12, 2005.
E. M. Rauch and Y. Bar-Yam: Nature 431, pp. 449-452, Sept. 23, 2004.
J. K. Werfel and Y. Bar-Yam: The evolution of reproductive restraint through social communication, PNAS 101, pp. 11019-11024, 2004.
M. A. M. de Aguiar, E. M. Rauch, and Y. Bar-Yam: Invasion and Extinction in the Mean Field Approximation for a Spatial Host-Pathogen Model, Journal of Statistical Physics 114, pp. 1417-1451, 2004.
E. M. Rauch, M. A. M. de Aguiar, and Y. Bar-Yam, Mean Field Approximation To a Spatial Host-Pathogen Model, Phys. Rev. E 67, 047102, 2003.
H. Sayama, M. A. M. de Aguiar, Y. Bar-Yam, and M. Baranger, Interplay between Turing pattern formation and domain coarsening in spatially extended population models, FORMA, SciPress, Tokyo, Japan, 2003 (in press).
H. Sayama, L. Kaufman, and Y. Bar-Yam: Spontaneous pattern formation and genetic diversity in habitats with irregular geographical features, Conservation Biology 17, 893, 2003.
E. M. Rauch, H. Sayama, and Y. Bar-Yam, Dynamics and genealogy of strains in spatially extended host pathogen models, J. Theor. Biol. 221, 655-664 (2003).
M. A.M. de Aguiar, H. Sayama, E. Rauch, Y. Bar-Yam, and M. Baranger, Stability and Instability of Polymorphic Populations and the Role of Multiple Breeding Seasons in Phase III of Wright's Shifting Balance Theory, Phys. Rev. E 65, 031909 (2002).
E. Rauch, H. Sayama, and Y. Bar-Yam, Relationship between measures of fitness and time scale in evolution, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 228101 (2002).
H. Sayama, M.A.M. de Aguiar, Y. Bar-Yam and M. Baranger, Spontaneous pattern formation and genetic invasion in locally mating and competing populations, Phys. Rev. E 65, 051919 (2002).
H. Sayama, L. Kaufman and Y. Bar-Yam: Symmetry breaking and coarsening in spatially distributed evolutionary processes including sexual reproduction and disruptive selection, Physical Review E 62, pp.7065-7069 (2000).
Y. Bar-Yam, Formalizing the gene centered view of evolution, Advances in Complex Systems 2, pp.277-281 (1999).

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