Eur. Phys. J. B 51, 301-306 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00222-x

The effect of spatial structure in adaptive evolution

¹ Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Rua Quinta Grande, 6, Apartado 14, 2781-901 Oeiras, Portugal
² Departamento de Física e Matemática, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Dois Irmãos, 52171-900 Recife, PE, Brazil

Corresponding author: ^a lperfeito@igc.gulbenkian.pt

Received: 16 February 2006
Revised: 29 March 2006
Published online: 9 June 2006

Abstract

We study the dynamics of adaptation in a spatially structured population. The model assumes local competition for replication, where each organism interacts only with its nearest neighbors and is inspired by experimental methods that can be used to study the process of adaptive evolution in microbes. In such experiments microbial populations are grown on petri dishes and allowed to adapt by serial passage. We compare the rate of adaptation in a structured population where the structure is maintained intact to those where movement of individuals can occur. We observe that the rate of adaptive evolution is higher and the mean effect of fixed beneficial mutations is lower in intact structures than in structures with mixing.