Evol Ecol Res 17: 743-756 (2016)     Full PDF if your library subscribes.

Evolution by natural selection to extinction

Kalle Parvinen

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

Correspondence: K. Parvinen, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turku, Finland. email: kalle.parvinen@utu.fi

ABSTRACT

Question: How does the mechanistic underpinning of a discrete-time model affect the possibility for evolutionary suicide?

Mathematical methods: Adaptive dynamics. Relevant theory on attractor families and bifurcations.

Features of model: A discrete-time population model derived from a continuous-time resource-consumer model with processes of harvesting resource, mate finding, and egg production.

Results: A population-level multiplicative parameter is affected both by the probability of egg survival and harvest effort. Higher survival probability is selected for, which can result in a period-doubling cascade to chaos, and in evolutionary suicide through a global bifurcation. Also, higher harvest effort is selected for, but it becomes a scaling factor for the model without qualitatively affecting its dynamics, and demographically stochastic extinction occurs.

Conclusion: Evolutionary predictions should be based on individual-level traits.

Keywords: adaptive dynamics, evolutionary suicide, evolution to extinction, first-principles derivation, mechanistic modelling.

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