Toward a universal model for spatially structured populations

Abstract

A key question in evolution is how likely a mutant is to take over. This depends on natural selection and on stochastic fluctuations. Population spatial structure can impact mutant fixation probabilities. We introduce a model for structured populations on graphs that generalizes previous ones by making migrations independent of birth and death. We demonstrate that by tuning migration asymmetry, the star graph transitions from amplifying to suppressing natural selection. Our results are universal in the sense that they do not hinge on a modeling choice of microscopic dynamics or update rules. Instead, they depend on migration asymmetry, which can be experimentally tuned and measured.