Complexity in competitive populations

Abstract

Our results suggest that a more complex strategy for survival is favored in a competitive environment. The degree of complexity is associated with the estimated embedding dimension for population sets where the birth rate, b, and mutation threshold, th, are independently varied. The embedding dimension for a time series determined by parameters of the Penna model was estimated from a simplex projection method. A deviation was encountered, however, for population sets where the maximum number of offspring in a lifetime, max_off, is varied. It is presumed that this may be due to the coupling of the parameters b and the minimum reproductive age r.