We developed a macroscopic description of the evolutionary dynamics by following the temporal dynamics of the total Shannon entropy of sequences, denoted by , and the average Hamming distance between them, denoted by . We argue that a biological system can persist in the so-called quasi-equilibrium state for an extended period, characterized by strong correlations between and , before undergoing a phase transition to another quasi-equilibrium state. To demonstrate the results, we conducted a statistical analysis of SARS-CoV-2 data from the United Kingdom during the period between March 2020 and December 2023. From a purely theoretical perspective, this allowed us to systematically study various types of phase transitions described by a discontinuous change in the thermodynamic parameters. From a more-practical point of view, the analysis can be used, for example, as an early warning system for pandemics.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10969704 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e26030201 | DOI Listing |
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