Phase transitions in microbial lineage trees
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866908974049132544 |
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| author | Öcal, Kaan Ghrabli, Syrine Stumpf, Michael P. H. |
| author_facet | Öcal, Kaan Ghrabli, Syrine Stumpf, Michael P. H. |
| contents | Statistical physics can describe the behavior of microbial populations consisting of many heterogeneous individuals. A direct consequence is the existence of phase transitions, where the behavior of a population changes discontinuously upon a small perturbation. While such phase transitions have often been proposed in biology, connecting observed behavior to the underlying physics has remained challenging. We show how phase transitions naturally arise in microbial population dynamics and highlight their connection with genealogies. We rigorously demonstrate the existence of a first-order phase transition in a model of bacterial plasmid engineering and find a strict lower bound on the number of plasmids that can be stably maintained in a population. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_16065 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Phase transitions in microbial lineage trees Öcal, Kaan Ghrabli, Syrine Stumpf, Michael P. H. Populations and Evolution Biological Physics Statistical physics can describe the behavior of microbial populations consisting of many heterogeneous individuals. A direct consequence is the existence of phase transitions, where the behavior of a population changes discontinuously upon a small perturbation. While such phase transitions have often been proposed in biology, connecting observed behavior to the underlying physics has remained challenging. We show how phase transitions naturally arise in microbial population dynamics and highlight their connection with genealogies. We rigorously demonstrate the existence of a first-order phase transition in a model of bacterial plasmid engineering and find a strict lower bound on the number of plasmids that can be stably maintained in a population. |
| title | Phase transitions in microbial lineage trees |
| topic | Populations and Evolution Biological Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.16065 |