Category: Pop. Genetics

Summary: Estimating how much heterogeneity in seed-bank reactivation rates is needed to re-localize the leading quasispecies mode onto a dormant refuge module.

Quasispecies theory explains mutation-selection balance, while dormancy and seed banks describe how populations can buffer harsh conditions by temporarily leaving the active pool. This experiment asks when dispersion in reactivation rates becomes strong enough to shift the leading evolutionary mode back onto a dormant refuge module rather than leaving it spread across the active population.

The model builds dense symmetric block operators that couple active and dormant states across multiple modules. Using iterative deepening and bisection on the amount of reactivation-rate dispersion, it tracks whether the leading eigenmode becomes localized on the seed-bank side and how that crossover changes with system size.

That makes the problem about structured evolutionary buffering, not just whether a population survives. The experiment is designed to map a finite-size threshold for refuge localization in a regime combining mutation, recombination, dormancy, and heterogeneous waking rates that has not been charted in this form.

Method: Dense symmetric eigensolve with iterative deepening and bisection on reactivation-rate dispersion in a modular active-dormant seed-bank operator.

What is measured: Critical dispersion estimate, bracket width, localized fraction, leading eigenvalue, module-localization score, dormant mass, and active mass.