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Evolution of resource competition between mutually dependent digital organisms
Tyler J Johnson1, Claus O Wilke
1California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. tyler@ugcs.caltech.edu
Artificial Life
|April 27, 2004
Summary
Digital organisms with two linked resources exhibit complex population dynamics. Mutations drive evolution, leading to stable populations by avoiding large oscillations and favoring resource-dependent fitness.
Area of Science:
- Digital evolution
- Ecological dynamics
- Systems biology
Background:
- Investigates competing digital organisms in an environment with two interdependent, depletable resources.
- Resource cycling occurs where consumption of one resource generates the other as a byproduct.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the emergence and dynamics of digital organism strains under varying ecological and evolutionary pressures.
- To understand how resource interdependency and mutations influence population stability and abundance.
Main Methods:
- Agent-based modeling of digital organisms with defined resource consumption and production rules.
- Simulation of ecological dynamics in the absence of mutations.
- Simulation of evolutionary dynamics under mutational pressure.
Main Results:
- In purely ecological simulations, two mutually dependent organism types emerge, exhibiting diverse oscillations (regular to irregular, small to large amplitude).
- Ecological dynamics show time-averaged abundances influenced by resource-independent fitness.
- Under mutation, populations evolve to avoid large-amplitude oscillations, with resource-dependent fitness impacting average abundances.
Conclusions:
- The interplay between resource cycling and organismal interactions drives complex population dynamics.
- Mutational pressure promotes evolutionary pathways towards population stability, shifting the influence on abundance from resource-independent to resource-dependent fitness.