Related papers: Neutral networks of genotypes: Evolution behind th…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
Background: Speciation corresponds to the progressive establishment of reproductive barriers between groups of individuals derived from an ancestral stock. Since Darwin did not believe that reproductive barriers could be selected for, he…
Self-adaptation is used in all main paradigms of evolutionary computation to increase efficiency. We claim that the basis of self-adaptation is the use of neutrality. In the absence of external control neutrality allows a variation of the…
RNA secondary structure is an important computational model to understand how genetic variation maps into phenotypic (structural) variation. Evolutionary innovation in RNA structures is facilitated by neutral networks, large connected sets…
We present novel analytical results about ecosystem species diversity that stem from a proposed coarse grained neutral model based on birth-death processes. The relevance of the problem lies in the urgency for understanding and synthesizing…
This chapter begins by outlining a promising, new theoretical framework for the process by which human culture evolves inspired by the views of complexity theorists on the problem of how life began. Elements of culture, like species, evolve…
Genetic regulation is a key component in development, but a clear understanding of the structure and dynamics of genetic networks is not yet at hand. In this paper we investigate these properties within an artificial genome model originally…
One can study communications by using Shannon's (1948) mathematical theory of communication. In social communications, however, the channels are not "fixed", but themselves subject to change. Communication systems change by communicating…
Adaptation to changing environments is a hallmark of biological systems. Diversity in traits is necessary for adaptation and can influence the survival of a population faced with novelty. In habitats that remain stable over many…
The mutual influence of dynamics and structure is a central issue in complex systems. In this paper we study by simulation slow evolution of network under the feedback of a local-majority-rule opinion process. If performance-enhancing local…
Phylogenetic networks are becoming of increasing interest to evolutionary biologists due to their ability to capture complex non-treelike evolutionary processes. From a combinatorial point of view, such networks are certain types of rooted…
Biological networks of interacting agents exhibit similar topological properties for a wide range of scales, from cellular to ecological levels, suggesting the existence of a common evolutionary origin. A general evolutionary mechanism…
Natural evolution gives the impression of leading to an open-ended process of increasing diversity and complexity. If our goal is to produce such open-endedness artificially, this suggests an approach driven by evolutionary metaphor. On the…
We analyze the population dynamics of a broad class of fitness functions that exhibit epochal evolution---a dynamical behavior, commonly observed in both natural and artificial evolutionary processes, in which long periods of stasis in an…
We simulate the evolution of model protein sequences subject to mutations. A mutation is considered neutral if it conserves 1) the structure of the ground state, 2) its thermodynamic stability and 3) its kinetic accessibility. All other…
We study the Tangled Nature model of macro evolution and demonstrate that the co-evolutionary dynamics produces an increasingly correlated core of well occupied types. At the same time the entire configuration of types becomes increasing…
According to the "hard-steps" model, the origin of humanity required "successful passage through a number of intermediate steps" (so-called "hard" or "critical" steps) that were intrinsically improbable with respect to the total time…
How diversity is maintained in natural ecosystems is a long-standing question in Theoretical Ecology. By studying a system that combines ecological dynamics, heterogeneous interactions and spatial structure, we uncover a new mechanism for…
Living things, computers, societies, and even books are part of a grand evolutionary struggle to survive. That struggle shapes nature, nations, religions, art, science, and you. What you think, feel, and do is determined by it. Darwinian…
Evolutionary branching is analysed in a stochastic, individual-based population model under mutation and selection. In such models, the common assumption is that individual reproduction and life career are characterised by values of a…