Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Sound Waves: Interference00:53

Sound Waves: Interference

Sound waves can be modeled either as longitudinal waves, wherein the molecules of the medium oscillate around an equilibrium position, or as pressure waves. When two identical waves from the same source superimpose on each other, the combination of two crests or two troughs results in amplitude reinforcement known as constructive interference. If two identical waves, that are initially in phase, become out of phase because of different path lengths, the combination of crests with troughs...
Sound as Pressure Waves01:17

Sound as Pressure Waves

Sound waves, which are longitudinal waves, can be modeled as the displacement amplitude varying as a function of the spatial and temporal coordinates. As a column of the medium is displaced, its successive columns are also displaced. As the successive displacements differ relatively, a pressure difference with the surrounding pressure is created. The gauge pressure varies across the medium.
The pressure fluctuation depends on the difference in displacements between the successive points in the...
Sound Waves01:01

Sound Waves

Sound waves can be thought of as fluctuations in the pressure of a medium through which they propagate. Since the pressure also makes the medium's particles vibrate along its direction of motion, the waves can be modeled as the displacement of the medium's particles from their mean position.
Sound waves are longitudinal in most fluids because fluids cannot sustain any lateral pressure. In solids, however, shear forces help in propagating the disturbance in the lateral direction as well. Hence,...
Shock Waves01:16

Shock Waves

While deriving the Doppler formula for the observed frequency of a sound wave, it is assumed that the speed of sound in the medium is greater than the source's speed through it. When this condition is breached, a shock wave occurs.
When the source's speed approaches the speed of sound, constructive interference between successive wavefronts emitted by the source occurs immediately behind it. Initially, scientists believed that this constructive interference would result in such high pressures...
Propagation of Waves01:07

Propagation of Waves

When a wave propagates from one medium to another, part of it may get reflected in the first medium, and part of it may get transmitted to the second medium. In such a case, the interface of the two mediums can be considered as a boundary that is neither fixed nor free.
Consider a scenario where a wave propagates from a string of low linear mass density to a string of high linear mass density. In such a case, the reflected wave is out of phase with respect to the incident wave, however the...
Forced Oscillations01:06

Forced Oscillations

When an oscillator is forced with a periodic driving force, the motion may seem chaotic. The motions of such oscillators are known as transients. After the transients die out, the oscillator reaches a steady state, where the motion is periodic, and the displacement is determined.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The evolution of genetic drift over 50,000 generations.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Uncovering heterogeneous intercommunity disease transmission from neutral allele frequency time series.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2025
Same author

Frequency-dependent fitness effects are ubiquitous.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2025
Same author

Asynchronous abundance fluctuations can drive giant genotype frequency fluctuations.

Nature ecology & evolution·2024
Same author

Lineage frequency time series reveal elevated levels of genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England.

PLoS pathogens·2024
Same author

Asynchronous abundance fluctuations can drive giant genotype frequency fluctuations.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2024
Same journal

Another 10 years of PLOS Computational Biology: A data-driven reflection on trends in genomics research.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Mobility data resolution needed to inform predictive models of spatial epidemic spread from mobile phone data.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

DeepMethylation: A deep learning framework for tissue-specific DNA methylation prediction and functional variant annotation.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Redefining and estimating the early-phase reproduction ratio for epidemic outbreaks in spatially structured populations.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Optimized phenotype definitions boost GWAS power.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Detection, communication, and individual identification with deep audio embeddings: A case study with North Atlantic right whales.

PLoS computational biology·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Sealable Femtoliter Chamber Arrays for Cell-free Biology
13:44

Sealable Femtoliter Chamber Arrays for Cell-free Biology

Published on: March 11, 2015

Noise driven evolutionary waves.

Oskar Hallatschek1

  • 1Biophysics and Evolutionary Dynamics Group, Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, Germany. oskar.hallatschek@ds.mpg.de

Plos Computational Biology
|March 23, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

New mutations increasing population density can spread via genetic drift, forming noise-driven waves. These waves slow with larger populations, promoting resource efficiency in evolution and ecology.

More Related Videos

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy
08:25

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Published on: April 27, 2021

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
06:34

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Sealable Femtoliter Chamber Arrays for Cell-free Biology
13:44

Sealable Femtoliter Chamber Arrays for Cell-free Biology

Published on: March 11, 2015

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy
08:25

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Published on: April 27, 2021

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
06:34

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Population dynamics
  • Theoretical ecology

Background:

  • Spatially extended populations adapt through the spread of novel traits.
  • The Fisher-Kolmogorov model describes traveling waves of adaptation driven by natural selection.
  • This model is crucial in evolution, ecology, epidemiology, and physics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To extend the Fisher-Kolmogorov model to include mutations affecting population density.
  • To investigate the invasion dynamics of density-increasing mutations.
  • To explore the role of genetic drift and spatial structure in adaptation.

Main Methods:

  • Mathematical modeling, extending the Fisher-Kolmogorov equation.
  • Analytical calculations.
  • Computer simulations of population dynamics.

Main Results:

  • Mutations increasing population density can invade via random genetic drift, even if slightly deleterious.
  • These novel "noise-driven waves" exhibit speeds that decrease with increasing population size.
  • A trade-off between density and growth rate allows prediction of optimal population density.

Conclusions:

  • Genetic drift and spatial structure can lead to efficient resource utilization.
  • The model suggests noise-induced pattern formation is common in biological systems.
  • This work offers insights into evolutionary adaptation in structured populations.