Competition-driven evolution of organismal complexity

We present a detailed quantitative description of this process using a microevolutionary com petition model as an example. The model exhibits sequential increases in phenotypic complexity driven by diversification at existing levels of complexity and a resulting increase in competitive pressure, which can push an evolving species over the barrier of physiological costs of new phenotypic fea tures.
Source: PLoS Computational Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: research