The Topology of Evolutionary Biology

Abstract

Central notions in evolutionary biology are intrinsically topological. This claim is perhaps most obvious for the discontinuities associated with punctuated equilibrium. Recently, a mathematical framework has been developed that derives the concepts of phenotypic characters and homology from the topological structure of the phenotype space. This structure in turn is determined by the genetic operators and their interplay with the properties of the genotype-phenotype map.