TY - JOUR N1 - © 1996 American Physical Society AV - public TI - Branching processes and evolution at the ends of a food chain SP - 4983 VL - 76 Y1 - 1996/06// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.4983 A1 - Caldarelli, Guido A1 - Tebaldi, Claudio A1 - Stella, Attilio KW - PACS: 87.10.+e KW - 02.50.-r KW - 05.40.+j KW - 64.60.Lx SN - 0031-9007 N2 - In a critically self-organized model of punctuated equilibrium, boundaries determine peculiar scaling of the size distribution of evolutionary avalanches. This is derived by an inhomogeneous generalization of standard branching processes, extending previous mean field descriptions and yielding ? = 1/2 together with ?? = 7/4, as distribution exponent of avalanches starting from species at the ends of a food chain. For the nearest neighbor chain one obtains numerically ?? = 1.25±0.01, and ?first? = 1.35±0.01 for the first return times of activity, again distinct from bulk exponents. EP - 4986 ID - eprints1182 PB - American Physical Society JF - Physical Review Letters IS - 26 ER -