A different type of spatial-temporal correlation in the process approaching the self-organized criticality is investigated for the two simple models for biological evolution. The changed behaviors of the position with minimum barrier are shown to be quantitatively different in the two models. Different results of the correlation are given for the two models. We argue that the correlation can be used, together with the power-law distributions, as criteria for self-organized criticality.

• Received 11 October 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.61.7243