Abstract

Here we show that connectivity and catastrophe play a key role in driving species evolution within a landscape. They also form a special case of a more general process, which occurs widely in natural and artifical systems. In this process, catastrophes cause a temporary phase change in the connectivity of a system. Different mechanisms (selection and variation) predominate in each phase. The system passes through the critical point without being poised there. The "chaotic edge" associated with the phase change may be an important source of variety in biological and other systems. In species evolution (and landscape ecology) the process is mediated by catclysmic events, which fragment widely distributed species and trigger population explosions of new species. Examples of the general mechanism include many cases of criticality, as well as certain algorithms used for optimisation and evolutionary programming. Introduction One of the great challenges facing science is to understand the ...

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