Phase Transitions and Phase Diagram of the Island Model with Migration

Abstract

We investigate the evolutionary dynamics and the phase transitions of the island model which consists of subdivided populations of individuals confined to two islands. In the island model, the population is subdivided so that migration acts to determine the evolutionary dynamics along with selection and genetic drift. The individuals are assumed to be haploid and to be one of two species, X or Y. They reproduce according to their fitness values, die at random, and migrate between the islands. The evolutionary dynamics of an individual based model is formulated in terms of a master equation and is approximated by using the diffusion method as the multidimensional Fokker-Planck equation (FPE) and the coupled non-linear stochastic differential equations (SDEs) with multiplicative noise. We analyze the infinite population limit to find the phase transitions from the monomorphic state of one type to the polymorphic state to the monomorphic state of the other type as we vary the ratio of the fitness values in two islands and complete the phase diagram of our island model.