Necessary and sufficient conditions for evolutionary suicide

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Biology
• Mathematical Biology
• Ecology

Background:

• Evolutionary suicide describes populations adapting to their own extinction.
• Previous research identified discontinuous transitions to extinction as necessary for suicide.
• Such phenomena were primarily observed in structured metapopulation models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To define the necessary and sufficient conditions for evolutionary suicide.
• To investigate the occurrence of evolutionary suicide in unstructured population models.
• To determine if structured models always permit evolutionary suicide.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of bifurcation points in population dynamics models.
• Comparison of evolutionary suicide in structured versus unstructured population models.
• Examination of age-structured models (Gurtin-MacCamy type) for suicide conditions.

Main Results:

• Identified necessary and sufficient conditions for evolutionary suicide related to bifurcation points.
• Demonstrated that evolutionary suicide can occur in unstructured population models.
• Proved that evolutionary suicide is not possible in Gurtin-MacCamy age-structured models.
• Highlighted the importance of mutant fitness depending on both environmental variables and resident strategy.

Conclusions:

• Evolutionary suicide is not limited to structured populations and can occur in simpler models.
• The presence of population structure does not guarantee the possibility of evolutionary suicide.
• Specific model structures, like Gurtin-MacCamy age-structured models, preclude evolutionary suicide.