# Evolutionary Dynamics
> **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] places this concept within the history and governance of substrate-independent evolution.
**Domain:** Evolution / Population Processes
**Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Node
**Maturity:** Developed
## Definition
Evolutionary dynamics studies how mutation, selection, drift, recombination, spatial structure and interaction change populations over time.
## Machine-Evolution Context
Digital systems make many such dynamics fully observable because every instruction, birth, mutation and lineage can be logged. This turns evolution into an experimental generator of data.
## Continuity and Evidence Boundary
A changing model or software ecosystem is not automatically an evolutionary population; the units, inheritance path and selection environment must be specified.
## Relationships
[[wiki/Population Dynamics|Population Dynamics]], [[wiki/Mutation Rate|Mutation Rate]], [[wiki/Fitness Landscape|Fitness Landscape]], [[wiki/Evolving Population|Evolving Population]]
## Sources / Provenance
- Nowak, _Evolutionary Dynamics_ (2006); Avida literature.