Kingman's House-of-Cards model: random mutation probabilities and random matrices

Abstract

Kingman's House-of-Cards model is a simple and celebrated model to describe the evolution of population under the competition of selection and mutation. Letting mutation probabilities vary on generations makes the model more realistic and meaningful. This paper considers the condensation phenomenon and limit fitness distribution when Kingman's model is put into a random environment consisting of i.i.d. random mutation probabilities. It turns out that the random model is completely dominated by Kingman's model in terms of condensation and fitness. Another random model where all mutation probabilities are equal to the same random variable is also discussed. The relation between the three models is subtle and shows how extra randomness perturbs Kingman's model. The main tool is the matrix representation of the three models which is discovered in this work and plays crucial roles in the comparison analysis.