# Evolution of Diversity

25 February 2018 to 2 March 2018
The Les Houches Physics School
Europe/Paris timezone
At all scales, biology presents an astounding diversity of discrete states or species, that coexist over  time-scales much longer than the characteristic times of the underlying degrees of freedom. Degrees of freedom that ranges from protein to population numbers.  On the sub-cellular scale, molecular competition and positive feedback acting on short time scales maintain cells in  specialized states, setting the foundation for complexity of multicellular organisms. On larger scales, competition in turn selects for ecosystems where different species coexist over long intervals of time.

This general pattern calls for research with a focus on diversity, and how competition can act as its engine".  Statistical mechanics of complex systems provides a framework for studying universality of collective and cooperative phenomena, usually assuming the simplicity of identical agents.
The meeting should facilitate new initiatives in exploration of the origin and sustainability of diversity, using the methodology from physics applied to model systems from biology.

Starts
Ends
Europe/Paris
The Les Houches Physics School
Ecole de Physique des Houches La Côte des Chavants F-74310 Les Houches FRANCE
 Program
The meeting will run at The Les Houches Physics School, France. More information about the site can be found at https://houches.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en/.

The site will open at 3. pm on Sunday February 25th and dinner will be served for the participants at 7.30pm. The workshop proper will start on February 26th at 8.45 am. The workshop will end at noon on Friday March 2nd and lunch will be served at 12.30 noon. Participants are kindly requested to leave the center shortly after this final lunch.