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Published February 19, 2002 | Published
Journal Article Open

Mutation, specialization, and hypersensitivity in highly optimized tolerance

Abstract

We introduce a model of evolution in which competing organisms are represented by percolation lattice models. Fitness is based on the number of occupied sites remaining after removing a cluster connected to a randomly selected site. High-fitness individuals arising through mutation and selection must trade off density versus robustness to loss, and are characterized by cellular barrier patterns that prevent large cascading losses to common disturbances. This model shows that Highly Optimized Tolerance (HOT), which links complexity to robustness in designed systems, arises naturally through Darwinian mechanisms. Although the model is a severe abstraction of biology, it produces a surprisingly wide variety of micro- and macroevolutionary features strikingly similar to real biological evolution.

Additional Information

© 2002 by the National Academy of Sciences Communicated by James S. Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, December 31, 2001 (received for review April 24, 2001) We thank Jeff Endelman, Carl Robert, and Deborah Fygenson for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, National Science Foundation Grant DMR-9813752, and the Electric Power Research Institute/Department of Defense through the Program on Interactive Complex Networks. Theoretical foundations for this work were developed in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research/Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative "Uncertainty Management in Complex Systems."

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