Figure 4

The effect of metabolic neighbourhood size on an evolving community of metabolically cooperating RNA replicators. The stationary frequencies of the different replicator types (A), the averages of the different enzymatic activities (B), and the average lengths of the different metabolic replicator types (C) in the stationary replicator populations after 10⁶ generations, at three different metabolic neighbourhood sizes (3×3, 5×5, 7×7). Replicators with enzymatic activity {1} (blue), {2} (red) {3} (green) and parasitic replicators without any enzymatic activity {P} (grey). Fixed parameters: D = 4, b ₂ = 0.05.