EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES

Evolutionary Mechanisms and Processes

Biological evolution is the natural and more or less stochastic process of the origination of living systems (organisms) from abiotic systems, of the cumulative change of their properties, and of their diversification and proliferation. Due to both specific mechanisms and passive trends, the organisms evolve toward higher complexity, diversity, and adaptedness of their traits. The most importan...

Are Evolutionary Processes Sexist??

Evolutionary processes in clusters

Are the morphologies of galaxies imprinted during an early and rapid formation epoch or are they due to environmental processes that subsequently transform galaxies between morphological classes? Recent numerical simulations demonstrate that the cluster environment can change the morphology of galaxies, even at a couple of cluster virial radii. The gravitational and hydrodynamical mechanisms th...

Evolutionary processes in finite populations.

We consider the evolution of large but finite populations on arbitrary fitness landscapes. We describe the evolutionary process by a Markov-Moran process. We show that to O(1/N), the time-averaged fitness is lower for the finite population than it is for the infinite population. We also show that fluctuations in the number of individuals for a given genotype can be proportional to a power of th...

Evolutionary change--patterns and processes.

The present review considered: (a) the factors that conditioned the early transition from non-life to life; (b) genome structure and complexity in prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and organelles; (c) comparative human chromosome genomics; and (d) the Brazilian contribution to some of these studies. Understanding the dialectical conflict between freedom and organization is fundamental to give meaning to...