From MathsDept

The Mathematics of Evolution

Ian Stewart, FRS Professor of Mathematics, University of Warwick, UK

Auckland Museum Institute and University of Auckland

Auckland Museum, Auditorium, Wednesday, Oct 10, 7.30

Bookings recommended 306 7048, Entry: $10 or $5 for Museum members and University of Auckland staff and students

Darwin’s theory of evolution is widely recognised as one of the key ideas in biology. It is less well known that evolution has also inspired a number of developments in mathematics, through attempts to model the evolutionary process and to understand some of its more puzzling features. The lecture will describe some of the mathematics that has developed from evolutionary biology. In particular, it will focus on the problem of the evolution of new species---or, as Darwin put it, "The Origin of Species".

It is difficult to see how a new species can evolve from an existing one if the newly evolving species can interbreed with the old one. The offspring would then revert towards the original species instead of separating from it. Biologists recognise two main mechanisms for forming new species. The most intuitive (‘allopatric speciation’) requires some kind of geographical barrier, such as a mountain range or a wide river, to keep the ‘founder population’ of the new species separated from the original species. The alternative (‘sympatric speciation’) happens despite such a barrier, which is a puzzle. Biologists are beginning to realise that sympatric speciation is far more common than had been thought, and mathematical models support this view and explain why geographical isolation is not necessary. The lecture will be non-technical, highly illustrated, and without mathematical formulas or equations.

Prof Stewart is the first Seelye Fellow visiting New Zealand at the invitation of the University of Auckland, Department of Mathematics.

Prof Stewart has held visiting positions in Germany, New Zealand, and the USA, and is an adjunct professor at Houston. In 1995 he received the Michael Faraday Medal and in 1997 Prof Stewart gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. He is winner of the 1999 Communications Award of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, and he was awarded the 2000 Gold Medal of the UK's Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications. His joint book The Science of Discworld was nominated for a Hugo award at the 2000 World science fiction convention. Jointly with M. Golubitsky he won the 2001 Balaguer Prize. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001, and won the Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002.

Entry to the Museum Auditorium is via the new Southern entrance at the back of the building. Carparking is available around the Museum and also in the new underground carpark. The carpark costs $3 per hour, capped at $8 per evening.