Nonequilibrium phase transitions in a model of ecological and evolutionary dynamics

POSTER

Abstract

We employ large-scale Monte-Carlo simulations to study the extinction transition in a model describing the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of biopopulations. In the case of a neutral, time-independent fitness landscape, the extinction transition falls into the well-known directed percolation universality class. Temporal disorder (representing, for example, climate fluctuations) drastically changes the transition and leads to an exotic infinite-noise critical point. It is characterized by anomalously large fluctuations of the population size and logarithmically slow dynamics.

*This work was supported in part by the NSF under Grant Nos. DMR-1205803 and DMR-1506152.

Authors

  • Skye Tackkett

    • Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Hatem Barghathi

    • University of Vermont
  • Thomas Vojta

    • Missouri University of Science and Technology