Related papers: Evolvability is a Selectable Trait
Our understanding of evolution is shaped strongly by how we conceive of its fundamental causes. In the original Modern Synthesis, evolution was defined as a process of shifting the frequencies of available alleles at many loci affecting a…
We introduce a new model of evolution on a fitness landscape possessing a tunable degree of neutrality. The model allows us to study the general properties of molecular species undergoing neutral evolution. We find that a number of…
While evolution has inspired algorithmic methods of heuristic optimisation, little has been done in the way of using concepts of computation to advance our understanding of salient aspects of biological phenomena. We argue that under…
The structure of ecological networks, in particular food webs, determines their ability to evolve further, i.e. evolvability. The knowledge about how food web evolvability is determined by the structures of diverse ecological networks can…
An increasing number of dissident voices claim that the standard neo-Darwinian view of genes as 'leaders' and phenotypes as 'followers' during the process of adaptive evolution should be turned on its head. This idea is older than the…
Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs,…
We present a simple physical model that recapitulates several features of biological evolution, while being based only on thermally-driven attachment and detachment of elementary building blocks. Through its dynamics, this model samples a…
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…
We explore the connection between evolution and large-deviation theory. To do so, we study evolutionary dynamics in which individuals experience mutations, reproduction, and selection using variants of the Moran model. We show that, in the…
Biological phenotypes are products of complex evolutionary processes in which selective forces influence multiple biological trait measurements in unknown ways. Phylogenetic factor analysis disentangles these relationships across the…
Simulation of population dynamics is a central research theme in computational biology, which contributes to understanding the interactions between predators and preys. Conventional mathematical tools of this theme, however, are incapable…
We show how the characteristics of the evolutionary algorithm influence the evolvability of candidate solutions, i.e. the propensity of evolving individuals to generate better solutions as a result of genetic variation. More specifically,…
The impact of environmental fluctuation on species diversity is studied with a model of the evolutionary ecology of microorganisms. We show that environmental fluctuation induces evolutionary branching and assures the consequential…
Ecological selection is a major driver of community assembly. Selection is classified as stabilizing when species with intermediate trait values gain the highest reproductive success, whereas selection is considered directional when fitness…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. It is well known that population structure can affect evolutionary dynamics. Traditionally, natural selection is studied between mutants that differ in reproductive rate, but are…
The profound impact of Darwin's theory of evolution on biology has led to the acceptance of the theory in many complex systems that lie well beyond its original domain. Culture is one example that also exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary…
Continuous adaptation allows survival in an ever-changing world. Adjustments in the synaptic coupling strength between neurons are essential for this capability, setting us apart from simpler, hard-wired organisms. How these changes can be…
Weak selection, which means a phenotype is slightly advantageous over another, is an important limiting case in evolutionary biology. Recently it has been introduced into evolutionary game theory. In evolutionary game dynamics, the…
We have generalized our ``unified'' model of evolutionary ecology by taking into account the possible movements of the organisms from one ``patch'' to another within the same eco-system. We model the spatial extension of the eco-system…
Bacterial chemotaxis systems are as diverse as the environments that bacteria inhabit, but how much environmental variation can cells tolerate with a single system? Diversification of a single chemotaxis system could serve as an…