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Transitions in optimal adaptive strategies for populations in fluctuating environments

Andreas Mayer, Thierry Mora, Olivier Rivoire, and Aleksandra M. Walczak
Phys. Rev. E 96, 032412 – Published 21 September 2017

Abstract

Biological populations are subject to fluctuating environmental conditions. Different adaptive strategies can allow them to cope with these fluctuations: specialization to one particular environmental condition, adoption of a generalist phenotype that compromises between conditions, or population-wise diversification (bet hedging). Which strategy provides the largest selective advantage in the long run depends on the range of accessible phenotypes and the statistics of the environmental fluctuations. Here, we analyze this problem in a simple mathematical model of population growth. First, we review and extend a graphical method to identify the nature of the optimal strategy when the environmental fluctuations are uncorrelated. Temporal correlations in environmental fluctuations open up new strategies that rely on memory but are mathematically challenging to study: We present analytical results to address this challenge. We illustrate our general approach by analyzing optimal adaptive strategies in the presence of trade-offs that constrain the range of accessible phenotypes. Our results extend several previous studies and have applications to a variety of biological phenomena, from antibiotic resistance in bacteria to immune responses in vertebrates.

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  • Received 28 March 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.96.032412

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics of Living Systems

Authors & Affiliations

Andreas Mayer1, Thierry Mora2, Olivier Rivoire3, and Aleksandra M. Walczak1

  • 1Laboratoire de physique théorique, CNRS, UPMC and École normale supérieure, 75005 Paris, France
  • 2Laboratoire de physique statistique, CNRS, UPMC and École normale supérieure, 75005 Paris, France
  • 3Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, CNRS, INSERM and Collège de France, 75005 Paris, France

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 3 — September 2017

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