Session V38: Focus Session: The Physics of Evolution II
8:00 AM–11:00 AM, Thursday, March 24, 2011
Room: A130/131
Sponsoring Units:
DCP DBP
Chair: Eugene Shakhnovich, Harvard University
Abstract ID: BAPS.2011.MAR.V38.5
Abstract: V38.00005 : Dynamical Mueller's Ratchet: Population Size Dependence of Evolutionary Paths in Bacteria
10:24 AM–10:36 AM
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Abstract 
Authors:
Dirk Lorenz
(Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University)
Jeong-Man Park
(Department of Physics, The Catholic University of Korea)
Michael Deem
(Departments of Physics and Astronomy and Bioengineering, Rice University)
Experimental evolution has recently enabled the complete quantitative description of small-dimensional fitness landscapes. Quasispecies theory allows the mathematical modeling of evolution on such a landscape. Typically, analytic solutions for these models are only exactly solvable for the case of an infinite population. Here we use a functional integral representation of population dynamics and solve it using the Schwinger Boson method. This allows us to compute the first-order correction to the average fitness for finite populations. We will use these results to explain the experimental observations of dynamics of evolution in finite populations.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2011.MAR.V38.5