Evolution of robustness in digital organisms
- Creators
- Edlund, Jeffrey A.
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Adami, Christoph
Abstract
We study the evolution of robustness in digital organisms adapting to a high mutation rate. As genomes adjust to the harsh mutational environment, the mean effect of single Imitations decreases, up until the point where a sizable fraction (up to 30% in many cases) of the Imitations are neutral. We correlate the changes in robustness along the line of descent to changes in directional epistasis, and find that increased robustness is achieved by moving from antagonistic epistasis between mutations towards codes where mutations are, on average, independent. We interpret this recoding as a breakup of linkage between vital sections of the genome, up to the point where instructions are maximally independent of each other. While such a recoding often requires sacrificing some replication speed, it is the best strategy for withstanding high rates of mutation.
Additional Information
© 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Posted Online March 11, 2006. We thank Charles Ofria and Claus Wilke for suggestions and discussions that led to the final version of this project. J.A.E. thanks D. Allan Drummond and Daniel Wagenaar for guidance. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation's Biocomplexity Program under Contract No. DEB-9981397. All data were obtained on a cluster of 160 processors at Michigan State University, supported by the NSF under the aforementioned contract.Attached Files
Published - EDLal04.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 13559
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:EDLal04
- DEB-9981397
- National Science Foundation
- Created
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2009-05-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field