Related papers: Fruitful symbioses between termites and computers
Termites form complex dynamical trail networks from simple individual rules when exploring their environment. To help identify those simple rules, we reconstructed trail networks from time-lapse images of roaming termites. We quantified the…
In past work, we developed a computational model of the evolution of symbiotic entities (Model-S), based on Conway's Game of Life. In this article, we examine three trends that biologists have observed in the evolution of symbiotes. (1)…
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…
Empirical evidence suggesting that living systems might operate in the vicinity of critical points, at the borderline between order and disorder, has proliferated in recent years, with examples ranging from spontaneous brain activity to…
Microbial communities display extreme diversity. A variety of strains or species coexist even when limited by a single resource. It has been argued that metabolite secretion creates new niches and facilitates such diversity. Nonetheless, it…
The built environment provides an excellent setting for interdisciplinary research on the dynamics of microbial communities. The system is simplified compared to many natural settings, and to some extent the entire environment can be…
Many organisms live in populations structured by space and by class, exhibit plastic responses to their social partners, and are subject to non-additive ecological and fitness effects. Social evolution theory has long recognized that all of…
This chapter discusses the possibility of instilling a virtual world with mechanisms for evolution and natural selection in order to generate rich ecosystems of complex organisms in a process akin to biological evolution. Some previous work…
Ecosystems are commonly conceptualized as networks of interacting species. However, partitioning natural diversity of organisms into discrete units is notoriously problematic, and mounting experimental evidence raises the intriguing…
Plant-pollinator associations are often seen as purely mutualistic, while in reality they can be more complex. Indeed they may also display a diverse array of antagonistic interactions, such as competition and victim--exploiter…
We study open-ended evolution by focusing on computational and information-processing dynamics underlying major evolutionary transitions. In doing so, we consider biological organisms as hierarchical dynamical systems that generate…
Mutualistic networks are formed when the interactions between two classes of species are mutually beneficial. They are important examples of cooperation shaped by evolution. Mutualism between animals and plants plays a key role in the…
Ecological networks allow us to study the structure and function of ecosystems and gain insights on species resilience/stability. The study of this ecological networks is usually a snapshop focused in a limited specific range of space and…
Lately, experimental research on microbial symbioses based on nutrient exchange and interdependence has yielded a number of interesting findings, however an in-depth mathematical description of the exact underlying dynamics of such…
Nature features a plethora of extraordinary photonic architectures that have been optimized through natural evolution. While numerical optimization is increasingly and successfully used in photonics, it has yet to replicate any of these…
We start with a discussion of the relevant literature, including Nature Inspired Computing as a framework in which to understand this work, and the process of biomimicry to be used in mimicking the necessary biological processes to create…
Microbial ecosystems are remarkably diverse, stable, and often consist of a balanced mixture of core and peripheral species. Here we propose a conceptual model exhibiting all these emergent properties in quantitative agreement with real…
A primary motivation for our research in Digital Ecosystems is the desire to exploit the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems. Ecosystems are thought to be robust, scalable architectures that can automatically solve complex,…
The significant role of space in maintaining species coexistence and determining community structure and function is well established. However, community ecology studies have mainly focused on simple competition and predation systems, and…
From pathogens and computer viruses to genes and memes, contagion models have found widespread utility across the natural and social sciences. Despite their success and breadth of adoption, the approach and structure of these models remain…