SEX AND SELF-ORGANIZATION ON RUGGED LANDSCAPES

The two-parent reproduction model of Derrida and Peliti is simulated on a rugged fitness landscape. Fixed fitness values for each possible genotype are assigned randomly, with all fit individuals having the same probability of reproduction. The previously observed transition to a self-organized state of the population with less recombinational load, implies an abrupt change of genetic overlap distributions, showing up characteristics of a phase transition. A crossover variant of the model has a smoother transition to the adapted regime, with a residual collective adaptation for small values of the threshold in fitness. When a geographical constraint (shortest possible distance) on pairwise reproduction in a population arranged one-dimensionally is imposed, a poised state results, suggestive of self-organized criticality.