Chaos, fractals and nonlinear dynamics in evolution and phylogeny

D M Green

doi:10.1016/0169-5347(91)90042-V

Chaos, fractals and nonlinear dynamics in evolution and phylogeny

Trends Ecol Evol. 1991 Oct;6(10):333-7. doi: 10.1016/0169-5347(91)90042-V.

Author

D M Green¹

Affiliation

¹ Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2K6.

PMID: 21232500
DOI: 10.1016/0169-5347(91)90042-V

Abstract

Biological evolution is a dynamic system that can be modelled using physical-time-evolution equations, Even simple iterative models can have complex dynamics, and replication, the fundamental evolutionary property of living things, is an iterative process. All living things can be conceived in abstract geometric terms as elements comprising an infinite fractal set in n-dimensional euclidian space. Phylogeny, the ancestral-descendant time series connecting individuals through successive generations, is also fractal. This article shows how dynamic models and fractal geometry can be applied to phylogeny and evolutionary theory, providing a basis for refuting linnaean categorical ranks in taxonomy, for recognizing limits to the naturalness of any classification and for understanding the physics of the evolutionary process.