Critical Population and Error Threshold on the Sharp Peak Landscape for a Moran Model

Critical Population and Error Threshold on the Sharp Peak Landscape for a Moran Model Synopsis

The goal of this work is to propose a finite population counterpart to Eigen's model, which incorporates stochastic effects. The author considers a Moran model describing the evolution of a population of size m of chromosomes of length ? over an alphabet of cardinality ?. The mutation probability per locus is q. He deals only with the sharp peak landscape: the replication rate is ?>1 for the master sequence and 1 for the other sequences. He studies the equilibrium distribution of the process in the regime where

?? ?,m? ?,q?0,

?q?a?]0, ?[,m????[0, ?].