Avoiding artificial deaths in a Penna model population

Abstract

In the Penna model, deaths by old age are known to artificially truncate age demographics. We propose to avoid these deaths by obtaining a parameter space plot (Penna parameters R and T, here constrained to a birth rate B=8) for which these deaths do not occur. For both TR, the genetic diversity and number of species decreased more slowly in populations with old age deaths than those without. This confirms a difference in the genetic evolution of these populations.