Speaker
Description
Evolutionary dynamics permeates life and life-like systems. Mathematical methods can be used to study evolutionary processes, such as selection, mutation, and drift, and to make sense of many phenomena in life sciences. Mass-action (or mean-field) evolutionary dynamics have been studied over the last 100 years, and produced an enormous wealth of useful results. In this talk, however, I will discuss how spatial interactions may change the laws of evolution, giving rise to a number of interesting and counterintuitive findings. I will discuss both explicitly spatial systems and metapopulations, and demonstrate a number of scaling laws that describe production and spread of disadvantageous, neutral, and advantageous mutants. Applications of these laws to bacterial growth and carcinogenesis will be discussed.
