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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Posters: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems

BP 7.14: Poster

Monday, March 14, 2011, 17:15–20:00, P3

Evolution in Group-Structured Populations — •Jonas Cremer, Anna Melbinger, and Erwin Frey — Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München

Populations of microbial organisms show a very versatile evolutionary behavior. One very important factor co-determining the evolutionary dynamics is the structure of the population in a complex environment. In fact, the evolutionary outcome in highly structured populations can strongly alter from well-mixed ones; different sub-populations can evolve almost separately, only in weak contact to each other. Here, we study the evolution of cooperation in a population regularly forming new sub-colonies. While, due to their metabolic costs, cooperative traits have a selection disadvantage within each group, groups with a higher level of cooperation grow faster. As we show, there are two distinct evolutionary mechanism which allow for both, the evolution and maintenance of cooperation.