Related papers: Multi-level selection in biology
Multilevel selection is an important organizing principle that crucially underlies evolutionary processes from the emergence of cells to eusociality and the economics of nations. Previous studies on multilevel selection assumed that the…
Multilevel selection occurs when short-term individual-level reproductive interests conflict with longer-term group-level fitness effects. Detecting and quantifying this phenomenon is key to understanding evolution of traits ranging from…
Biological and social systems are structured at multiple scales, and the incentives of individuals who interact in a group may diverge from the collective incentive of the group as a whole. Mechanisms to resolve this tension are responsible…
Many examples of cooperation exist in biology. In chemical systems however, which can sometimes be quite complex, we do not appear to observe intricate cooperative interactions. A key question for the origin of life, is then how can…
In practical optimisation the dominant characteristics of the problem are often not known prior. Therefore, there is a need to develop general solvers as it is not always possible to tailor a specialised approach to each application. The…
Natural selection acts on traits at different scales, often with opposing consequences. This article identifies the particular forces that act at each scale and how those forces combine to determine the overall evolutionary outcome. A…
In a complex system, the individual components are neither so tightly coupled or correlated that they can all be treated as a single unit, nor so uncorrelated that they can be approximated as independent entities. Instead, patterns of…
Numerous living systems are hierarchically organised, whereby replicating components are grouped into reproducing collectives -- e.g., organelles are grouped into cells, and cells are grouped into multicellular organisms. In such systems,…
In many biological systems, natural selection acts simultaneously on multiple levels of organization. This scenario typically presents an evolutionary conflict between the incentive of individuals to cheat and the collective incentive to…
In many indigenous societies, people are categorised into several cultural groups, or clans, within which they believe to share ancestors. Clan attributions provide certain rules for marriage and descent. Such rules between clans constitute…
Here we consider a game theoretic model of multilevel selection in which individuals compete based on their payoff and groups also compete based on the average payoff of group members. Our focus is on multilevel social dilemmas: games in…
We explain how hierarchical organization of biological systems emerges naturally during evolution, through a transition in the units of individuality. We will show how these transitions are the result of competing selective forces operating…
What is motivation and how does it work? Where do goals come from and how do they vary within and between species and individuals? Why do we prefer some things over others? MEDO is a theoretical framework for understanding these questions…
A group of non-cooperating agents can succumb to the \emph{tragedy-of-the-commons} if all of them seek to maximize the same resource channel to improve their viability. In nature, however, groups often avoid such collapses by…
Species-rich communities, such as the microbiota or microbial ecosystems, provide key functions for human health and climatic resilience. Increasing effort is being dedicated to design experimental protocols for selecting community-level…
Selection on the level of loosely associated groups has been suggested as a route towards the evolution of cooperation between individuals and the subsequent formation of higher-level biological entities. Such group selection explanations…
Machine learning (ML) primarily evolved to solve "prediction problems." The first stage of two-stage least squares (2SLS) is a prediction problem, suggesting potential gains from ML first-stage assistance. However, little guidance exists on…
A variety of methods have been proposed for interpreting nodes in deep neural networks, which typically involve scoring nodes at lower layers with respect to their effects on the output of higher-layer nodes (where lower and higher layers…
A class of measure-valued processes which model multilevel populations undergoing mutation, selection, genetic drift and spatial migration is considered. We investigate the qualitative behaviour of models with multilevel selection and the…
We apply the theory of learning to physically renormalizable systems in an attempt to develop a theory of biological evolution, including the origin of life, as multilevel learning. We formulate seven fundamental principles of evolution…