Mathematical Model of Evolution of Non-Degenerate Replicator Systems

Abstract

We propose and analyse a mathematical model of evolutionary adaptation for non-degenerate (permanent) replicator systems, in which the fitness landscape matrix evolves on a slow timescale -- the evolutionary time -- while the species dynamics unfold on a fast timescale. Under a two-timescale separation justified by Tikhonov's theorem, the adaptation problem reduces to maximising the mean fitness at steady state over a convex admissible set of fitness landscape matrices. We derive a fitness variation formula and establish necessary and sufficient conditions for a fitness maximum, showing that the optimisation reduces at each step to a linear programming problem. The algorithm is applied to four canonical replicator systems: the hypercycle, the bi-hypercycle, the anthill system, and the RNA molecule network. In all cases the evolutionary process follows a universal three-phase pattern: an initial phase of fitness growth without equilibrium shift, during which purely altruistic replication gives way to mixed altruistic-selfish behaviour; a second phase of dominant species emergence; and a stabilisation phase analogous to the error catastrophe threshold in quasispecies models. A key consequence is that all evolved systems acquire resistance to parasitic species. We further prove that without non-degeneracy constraints the process leads to sequential species annihilation, with a provable spectral lower bound on fitness increase by dimension reduction.