Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations
Published on: October 29, 2016
Evolution in a spatially structured population subject to rare epidemics
J E Socolar1, S Richards, W G Wilson
1Physics Department and CNCS, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
Abstract:
We study a model that gives rise to spatially inhomogeneous population densities in a system of host individuals subject to rare, randomly distributed disease events. For stationary hosts that disperse offspring over short distances, evolutionary dynamics can lead to persistent populations with a variety of spatial structures. A mean-field analysis is shown to account for the behavior observed in simulations of a one-dimensional system, where the evolutionarily stable state corresponds to the solution of a straightforward optimization problem. In two dimensions, evolution drives the system to a stable critical state that is less well understood.
Related Concept Videos
Population Growth
Hardy-Weinberg Principle
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift
Genetic Drift
Evolutionary Processes in Microbes
Infectious Diseases and Their Occurrence

