  We study the evolution of one-dimensional quantum lattice systems when the
ground state is perturbed by altering one site in the middle of the chain. For
a large class of models, we observe a similar pattern of entanglement growth
during the evolution, characterized by a moderate increase of significant
Schmidt coefficients in all relevant bipartite decompositions of the state. As
a result, the evolution can be accurately described by a matrix product state
and efficiently simulated using the time-evolving block decimation algorithm.
