Abstract
Environmental heterogeneity can drive genetic heterogeneity in expanding populations; mutant strains may emerge that trade overall growth rate for an improved ability to survive in patches that are hostile to the wild type. This evolutionary dynamic is of practical importance when seeking to prevent the emergence of damaging traits. We show that a subcritical slow-spreading mutant can attain dominance even when the density of patches is below their percolation threshold and predict this transition using geometrical arguments. This work demonstrates a phenomenon of “assisted percolation”, where one subcritical process assists another to achieve supercriticality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 044401 |
| Journal | Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics |
| Volume | 108 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 4 Oct 2023 |
Bibliographical note
We are grateful to Dibyendu Dutta for discussions and feedback on the manuscript. T.T. acknowledges support by the EPSRC DTP and Syngenta Crop Protection. W.M. acknowledges support by the BBSRC via BBSRC-NSF/BIO Grant BB/V011464/1. Most of the simulations of this paper were performed on the University of Exeter’s high performance computer ISCA.Funding
We are grateful to Dibyendu Dutta for discussions and feedback on the manuscript. T.T. acknowledges support by the EPSRC DTP and Syngenta Crop Protection. W.M. acknowledges support by the BBSRC via BBSRC-NSF/BIO Grant BB/V011464/1. Most of the simulations of this paper were performed on the University of Exeter's high performance computer ISCA.