Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T11:32:14.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Predator-prey behaviour in self-replicating interstellar probes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

Duncan H. Forgan Open the ORCID record for Duncan H. Forgan [Opens in a new window]
Duncan H. Forgan*
Affiliation:
Centre for Exoplanet Science, SUPA, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9SS, UK
*
Author for correspondence: Duncan H. Forgan, E-mail: dhf3@st-andrews.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The concept of a rapid spread of self-replicating interstellar probes (SRPs) throughout the Milky Way adds considerable strength to Fermi's Paradox. A single civilization creating a single SRP is sufficient for a fleet of SRPs to grow and explore the entire Galaxy on timescales much shorter than the age of the Earth – so why do we see no signs of such probes? One solution to this Paradox suggests that self-replicating probes eventually undergo replication errors and evolve into predator-prey populations, reducing the total number of probes and removing them from our view.

I apply Lotka-Volterra models of predator-prey competition to interstellar probes navigating a network of stars in the Galactic Habitable Zone to investigate this scenario. I find that depending on the local growth mode of both populations and the flow of predators/prey between stars, there are many stable solutions with relatively large numbers of prey probes inhabiting the Milky Way. The solutions can exhibit the classic oscillatory pattern of Lotka-Volterra systems, but this depends sensitively on the input parameters. Typically, local and global equilibria are established with prey sometimes outnumbering the predators. Accordingly, we find this solution to Fermi's Paradox does not reduce the probe population sufficiently to be viable.

Keywords

Fermi's ParadoxLotka-Volterrapredator-prey competitionSETI
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 18 , Issue 6 , December 2019 , pp. 552 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annis, J (1999) An astrophysical explanation for the “great silence”. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 52, 19.Google Scholar
Balbi, A and Tombesi, F (2017) The habitability of the Milky Way during the active phase of its central supermassive black hole. Scientific Reports 7, 16626.Google Scholar
Bergemann, M, Ruchti, GR, Serenelli, A, Feltzing, S, Alves-Brito, A, Asplund, M, Bensby, T, Gruiters, P, Heiter, U, Hourihane, A, Korn, A, Lind, K, Marino, A, Jofre, P, Nordlander, T, Ryde, N, Worley, CC, Gilmore, G, Randich, S, Ferguson, AMN, Jeffries, RD, Micela, G, Negueruela, I, Prusti, T, Rix, H-W, Vallenari, A, Alfaro, EJ, Allende Prieto, C, Bragaglia, A, Koposov, SE, Lanzafame, AC, Pancino, E, Recio-Blanco, A, Smiljanic, R, Walton, N, Costado, MT, Franciosini, E, Hill, V, Lardo, C, de Laverny, P, Magrini, L, Maiorca, E, Masseron, T, Morbidelli, L, Sacco, G, Kordopatis, G and Tautvaišienė, G (2014) The Gaia-ESO Survey: radial metallicity gradients and age-metallicity relation of stars in the Milky Way disk. Astronomy & Astrophysics 565, A89.Google Scholar
Brin, GD (1983) The great silence - the controversy concerning extraterrestrial intelligent life. QJRAS 24, 283.Google Scholar
Chyba, CF and Hand, KP (2005) ASTROBIOLOGY: The Study of the Living Universe. ARA&A 43, 31.Google Scholar
Ćirković, MM (2009) Fermi's paradox: the last challenge for copernicanism? Serbian Astronomical Journal 178, 1.Google Scholar
Collins, SG (2008) All Tomorrow's Cultures: Anthropological Engagements with the Future. New York City: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Cross, MC and Hohenberg, PC (1993) Pattern formation outside of equilibrium. Reviews of Modern Physics 65, 851.Google Scholar
Denning, K (2011) Ten thousand revolutions: conjectures about civilizations. Acta Astronautica 68, 381.Google Scholar
Forgan, DH (2017) The Galactic Club or Galactic Cliques? Exploring the limits of interstellar hegemony and the Zoo Hypothesis. International Journal of Astrobiology 16, 349.Google Scholar
Frachebourg, L, Krapivsky, PL and Ben-Naim, E (1996) Spatial organization in cyclic Lotka-Volterra systems. Physical Review E 54, 6186.Google Scholar
Freitas, RA (1983) The search for extraterrestrial artifacts (SETA). British Interplanetary Society 36, 501.Google Scholar
Gavina, MKA, Tahara, T, Tainaka, KI, Ito, H, Morita, S, Ichinose, G, Okabe, T, Togashi, T, Nagatani, T and Yoshimura, J (2018) Multi-species coexistence in Lotka-Volterra competitive systems with crowding effects. Scientific Reports 8, 1198.Google Scholar
Gowanlock, MG, Patton, DR and McConnell, SM (2011) A model of habitability within the Milky Way galaxy. Astrobiology 11, 855.Google Scholar
Haqq-Misra, J and Kopparapu, RK (2012) On the likelihood of non-terrestrial artifacts in the Solar System. Acta Astronautica 72, 15.Google Scholar
Lempert, W (2014) Decolonizing encounters of the third kind: alternative futuring in native science fiction film. Visual Anthropology Review 30, 164.Google Scholar
Macarthur, R and Levins, R (1967) The limiting similarity, convergence, and divergence of coexisting species. The American Naturalist 101, 377.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, JF and Roughgarden, J (1991) Pattern and stability in predator-prey communities: How diffusion in spatially variable environments affects the Lotka-Volterra model. Theoretical Population Biology 40, 148.Google Scholar
Murray, JD (2004) Mathematical Biology. Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics Vol. 17. New York, New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Nicholson, A and Forgan, D (2013) Slingshot dynamics for selfreplicating probes and the effect on exploration timescales. International Journal of Astrobiology 12, 337.Google Scholar
Nowak, MA and May, RM (1992) Evolutionary games and spatial chaos. Nature 359, 826.Google Scholar
Ohtsuki, H and Nowak, MA (2006) The replicator equation on graphs. Journal of Theoretical Biology 243, 86.Google Scholar
Ostlie, D and Carroll, B (1996) An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics. Cambridge University Press: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Palamara, GM, Zlatic, V, Scala, A and Caldarelli, G (2011) Population dynamics on complex food webs. Advances in Complex Systems 14, 635.Google Scholar
Papagiannis, MD (1978) Are we all alone, or could they be in the asteroid belt? QJRAS 19, 277.Google Scholar
Rozhnova, G and Nunes, A (2010) Population dynamics on random networks: simulations and analytical models. The European Physical Journal B 74, 235.Google Scholar
Sagan, C and Newman, WI (1983) The solipsist approach to extraterrestrial intelligence. QJRAS 24, 113.Google Scholar
Smale, S (1976) On the differential equations of species in competition. Journal of Mathematical Biology 3, 5.Google Scholar
Sotos, JG (2017) Biotechnology and the lifetime of technical civilizations. arXiv e-print 1709.01149.Google Scholar
Täuber, UC (2011) Stochastic population oscillations in spatial predator-prey models. Journal of Physics: Conference Series 319, 012019.Google Scholar
Tipler, FJ (1980) Extraterrestrial intelligent beings do not exist. QJRAS 21, 267.Google Scholar
Tomé, T and de Carvalho, KC (2007) Stable oscillations of a predator–prey probabilistic cellular automaton: a mean-field approach. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 40, 12901.Google Scholar
Turing, AM (1952) The chemical basis of morphogenesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 237, 37.Google Scholar
Vukotic, B and Ćirković, MM (2007) On the timescale forcing in astrobiology. Serbian Astronomical Journal 175, 45.Google Scholar
Vukotic, B and Cirkovic, MM (2008) Neocatastrophism and the milky way astrobiological landscape. Serbian Astronomical Journal 176, 71.Google Scholar
Wiley, KB (2011) The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth. arXiv e-prints 1111.6131.Google Scholar