Quasilocalization under coupled mutation-selection dynamics

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Auteurs principaux: Palpal-latoc, C. J., Vega, Ian
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Palpal-latoc, C. J.
Vega, Ian
author_facet Palpal-latoc, C. J.
Vega, Ian
contents When mutations are rampant, quasispecies theory or Eigen's model predicts that the fittest type in a population may not dominate. Beyond a critical mutation rate, the population may even be delocalized completely from the peak of the fitness landscape and the fittest is ironically lost. Extensive efforts have been made to understand this exceptional scenario. But in general, there is no simple prescription that predicts the eventual degree of localization for arbitrary fitness landscapes and mutation rates. Here, we derive a simple and general relation linking the quasispecies' Hill numbers, which are diversity metrics in ecology, and the ratio of an effective fitness variance to the mean mutation rate squared. This ratio, which we call the localization factor, emerges from mean approximations of decomposed surprisal or stochastic entropy change rates. On the side of application, the relation we obtained here defines a combination of Hill numbers that may complement other complexity or diversity measures for real viral quasispecies. Its advantage being that there is an underlying biological interpretation under Eigen's model.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_14863
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quasilocalization under coupled mutation-selection dynamics
Palpal-latoc, C. J.
Vega, Ian
Populations and Evolution
When mutations are rampant, quasispecies theory or Eigen's model predicts that the fittest type in a population may not dominate. Beyond a critical mutation rate, the population may even be delocalized completely from the peak of the fitness landscape and the fittest is ironically lost. Extensive efforts have been made to understand this exceptional scenario. But in general, there is no simple prescription that predicts the eventual degree of localization for arbitrary fitness landscapes and mutation rates. Here, we derive a simple and general relation linking the quasispecies' Hill numbers, which are diversity metrics in ecology, and the ratio of an effective fitness variance to the mean mutation rate squared. This ratio, which we call the localization factor, emerges from mean approximations of decomposed surprisal or stochastic entropy change rates. On the side of application, the relation we obtained here defines a combination of Hill numbers that may complement other complexity or diversity measures for real viral quasispecies. Its advantage being that there is an underlying biological interpretation under Eigen's model.
title Quasilocalization under coupled mutation-selection dynamics
topic Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14863