Category: Pop. Genetics

Summary: Finding how much mutation a modular quasispecies can tolerate before a dormant seed-bank reservoir no longer preserves localization on a rugged landscape.

Quasispecies models describe how mutation and selection shape populations spread across genotype space, while seed-bank dynamics describe dormancy and later reactivation. This experiment combines those ideas and asks how much mutation a modular rugged-landscape quasispecies can withstand before its dominant state delocalizes even when every active genotype is coupled to a dormant copy.

The model builds a dense mutation-selection operator with an explicit seed-bank block structure and uses GPU eigensolves plus iterative deepening to locate the mutation threshold. By focusing on the leading eigenvector rather than only aggregate fitness, the experiment tracks when the population loses concentrated occupancy on the structured landscape.

That combination is useful because mutation thresholds and dormancy effects are often analyzed separately. Here the seed bank is treated as a potential buffer against error catastrophe, and the experiment measures exactly where that buffer stops working.

Method: GPU dense eigensolve with iterative deepening on a modular mutation-selection operator with explicit dormant-reservoir coupling, bisecting mutation strength.

What is measured: Critical mutation threshold, leading-eigenvector localization, spectral growth behavior, and threshold bracket width.