Abstract
Current evolutionary biology models usually assume that a phenotype undergoes gradual change. This is in stark contrast to biological intuition which indicates that change can also be punctuated — the phenotype can jump. Such a jump can especially occur at speciation, i.e. dramatic change occurs that drives the species apart. Here we derive a central limit theorem for punctuated equilibrium. We show that if adaptation is fast for weak convergence to hold dramatic change has to be a rare event.
Copyright
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