Embodied Computational Evolution: Feedback Between Development and Evolution in Simulated Biorobots.

ABSTRACT: Given that selection removes genetic variance from evolving populations, thereby reducing exploration opportunities, it is important to find mechanisms that create genetic variation without the disruption of adapted genes and genomes caused by random mutation. Just such an alternative is offered by random epigenetic error, a developmental process that acts on materials and parts expressed by the genome. In this system of embodied computational evolution, simulated within a physics engine, epigenetic error was instantiated in an explicit genotype-to-phenotype map as transcription error at the initiation of gene expression. The hypothesis was that transcription error would create genetic variance by shielding genes from the direct impact of selection, creating, in the process, masqueradin

SUBMITTER: Hawthorne-Madell J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8222576 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature