A Biological Coevolution Model with Correlated Individual-Based Dynamics

The dynamics of biological coevolution poses many problems of interest to the statistical-physics and complexsystems communities [1, 2]. Recently, we studied a coevolution model that is a simplified version of the one introduced by Hall, et al. [3, 4, 5, 6]. Our model, in which individuals give birth, mutate and die, displays punctuated equilibrialike, quiet periods interrupted by bursts of mass extinctions [7, 8]. Interactions in this model were given by a random interaction matrix. Here we report on a modified version of the model, in which we have added correlations to the interaction matrix in order to increase the biological realism. The modified model is compared with the original one to assess the effects of correlations.