{"doi":"10.1103/physreve.111.044403","title":"Migration feedback induces emergent ecotypes and abrupt transitions in evolving populations","abstract":"We explore the connection between migration patterns and emergent behaviors of evolving populations in spatially heterogeneous environments. Despite extensive studies in systems of ecological and medical importance, a unifying framework that clarifies this connection and makes concrete predictions remains much needed. Using a simple evolutionary model on a network of interconnected habitats with distinct fitness landscapes, we demonstrate a fundamental connection between migration feedback, emergent ecotypes, and a form of discontinuous critical transition. We show how migration feedback-via circulating migration patterns-generates spatially nonlocal niches in which emergent ecotypes specialize. Rugged fitness landscapes lead to a complex, yet understandable, phase diagram in which different sets of ecotypes coexist under different migration patterns. Under certain ecological interactions, a discontinuous transition splits into two continuous transitions-this effect suggests a sensitive experimental probe for the nature and magnitude of the underlying interactions.","journal":"Physical review. E","year":2025,"id":552237,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9579,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":347312,"name":"Shenshen Wang","orcid":"0000-0001-9951-2118","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1239290,"name":"Casey O. Barkan","orcid":"0000-0002-2304-8475","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":55,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:33.203144Z","pmid":"40411059","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}