Self-Organized Criticality in the Autowave Model of Speciation
Self-organized criticality is considered as a threshold stage of autowave self-organization in the evolutionary process. The proposed model defines self-organized criticality as a set of threshold parameters of the autowave system of equations. Consequently, it is associated with the formation of a qualitatively new biological structure (a new species). Experimental data on the mutation rate for groups of mice and unicellular eukaryotes that are published in the scientific literature are used to construct an autowave model of speciation at the population level. This model approach demonstrates compliance with the available experimental data in the process of fixing recessive mutations: there are three stages of fixation of mutations (accumulation of phenotypic differences, the threshold level of the mutation rate, and elimination of mutation carriers) and the maximum mutation rate when the mismatch repair system and the DNA polymerase δ proofreading activity are disabled. The percolation model of mutations with a delayed mutation rate is used to analyze the dynamics of the number of mutants in generations. The results demonstrate exact correspondence between the use of autowave model and percolation model of mutation fixation for calculating and analyzing the dynamics of the mutation rate and the number of mutation carriers