The Tangled Nature model with inheritance and constraint: Evolutionary ecology restricted by a conserved resource

We study a version of the Tangled Nature model of evolutionary ecology redefined in a phenotype space where mutants have properties correlated to their parents. The model has individual-based dynamics whilst incorporating species scale competitive constraints and a system scale resource constraint. Multiple species arise that coexist in a species interaction network with evolving global properties. Both the mean interaction strength and the network connectance increase relative to the null system as mutualism becomes more extensive. From a study of the dependence of average degree on the resource level we extract the diversity-connectance relationship which conforms to the hyperbolic form seen in field data. This is adjudged to arise as a consequence of the evolutionary pressure to achieve positive interactions. The network degree distributions conform more strongly to exponential than to the null binomial distributions in all cases. This effect is believed to be caused by correlations in the reproductive process. We also study how resource availability influences the phenotypical lifetime distribution which is approximately of power law form. We observe that the mean lifetime is inversely related to the resource level. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.