New applications of an old individual-based model for biological dynamics.

Abstract

A simplified representation or interpretation of reality using conceptual and mathematical models plays a role in understanding important phenomena, especially biological ones. Based on Medawar’s mutation accumulation theory, which predicts that the strength of natural selection decreases with age, favouring the accumulation of deleterious genes to be expressed at advanced ages, an individual-based model (IBM) published in 1995 was designed to demonstrate the biological ageing mechanism, with each individual being represented by a bitstring in a chronological manner. This model is called Penna Model (Penna, 1995) in honour of the creator, the physicist Thadeu Josino Pereira Penna. For this first time, this article carries out a systematic review of the use of Penna Model to assess its applicability in other phenomena and biological mechanisms. Our results indicate that the model was extensively explored and improved by researchers from different parts of the world, through small changes in the structure and base parameters of the model aimed at the biological phenomena of interest including Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology and Genetics issues. These changes have allowed the use of the model in other biological phenomena besides aging, with studies in systems of predation, competition, fragmentation, natural selection, speciation, genetics, immunology, epidemiology and others. The model is highlighted as a fairly flexible tool for applied biological dynamics of simple use, with the possibility of implementing different scales - temporal or spatial; and different languages - computational, logical or numerical; in addition to the possibility of inserting parameters that modify the individual and/or population that allow consistent results for decision-making.