The Dynamics Induced in a Biological System by Broken Mutational Symmetry and Non-Linear Feedback

D. Waxman

Conference Paper. Systems Theory: Modelling, Analysis and Control, May 25-28 Fes Morocco (2009)

Centre for the Study of Evolution, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, United Kingdom.

Some biological systems involving mutation and selection are characterised by nonlinear equations that can have dynamically complex outcomes. We consider the genes affecting a quantitative trait that have been previously found to have a distribution that persistently changes and does not equilibrate. This is the outcome of non-linear feedback arising from selection and mutational processes that vary from one genetic locus to another, thereby breaking the symmetry that all loci are equivalent. Here we adopt an approximate analytical approach to identify the evolutionary 'force' that drives the persistent change.