A PROBABILISTIC PHENOTYPE DYNAMICAL MODEL FOR SYMPATRIC SPECIATION: SOME PROPERTIES AND NUMERICAL RESULTS

Sympatric speciation is an important phenomenon in Evolution: a population being able to express two different phenotypes gives rise to a new species without a physical separation from the original population. In this paper, we describe a model that describes the sympatric speciation process using a population dynamics approach. Our aim is to point out some dynamical features that could be observed in a population where a sympatric speciation process is going on. Some interesting stochastic effects are discussed by means of numerical simulations.