The shape of evolving systems: How spatial arrangement drives evolutionary dynamics

Living systems, from cancer cell populations and microbial colonies to human societies, are inherently spatial. Individuals interact within complex networks of relationships, and we are finally starting to have unprecedented access to datasets that reveal this spatial organization, the ”shape” of biological systems.

Despite this growing wealth of spatial data, most evolutionary modeling and inference still rely on the simplifying assumption of well-mixed populations. While this approximation was historically necessary when spatial information was scarce, it now limits our ability to extract meaningful insights from modern datasets.

In this talk, I will discuss emerging efforts to understand how spatial structure shapes eco-evolutionary dynamics and explain why accurately interpreting novel spatial data and making robust evolutionary inferences requires developing new methods that explicitly incorporate spatial constraints and heterogeneity. I will also present recent work from my group that tackles this challenge through novel mathematical and computational approaches. These approaches provide tractable and generalizable models that help bridge theory and data, opening new avenues for understanding how spatial organization influences evolutionary processes across biological systems.