An Amoeba Problem

This stylized amoeba problem is a classic illustration of a random process. Each sample colony starts from a single parent amoeba. At each time step, each living amoeba either survives to split into two or dies out, with a constant survival chance. A colony dies out if all its members—daughters of one original parent—die out. For different probabilities of survival, times, and starting sample sizes, the population history of each colony is shown, along with the number of surviving colonies and the total number of surviving individuals.