Correlation analysis of coupled fitness landscapes

The correlation structure of fitness landscapes is a much used measure to characterize and classify various types of landscapes. However, analyzing the correlation structure of fitness landscapes has so far been restricted to static landscapes only. Here, we investigate the correlation structure of coupled, or dynamic, fitness landscapes. Using the NKC model of coevolution, we apply a correlation analysis on various instances of this model and present the results. One of the main goals of this paper is thus to show that a previously introduced correlation analysis can be successfully extended to coupled fitness landscapes. Furthermore, our analysis shows that this provides meaningful and interesting results that can contribute to a better understanding of coevolution in general.