We have investigated the essential ingredients allowing a system to show self-organized criticality (SOC) in its collective behavior. Using the Bak-Sneppen model of biological evolution as our paradigm, we show that the random microscopic rules of update can be effectively substituted with a chaotic map without changing the universality class. Using periodic maps SOC is preserved, but in a different universality class, as long as the spectrum of frequencies is broad enough.

• Received 7 February 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.56.4876