The evolutionary origins of modularity - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Année : 2013

The evolutionary origins of modularity

Résumé

A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks—their organization as functional, sparsely connected subunits—but there is no consensus regarding why modularity itself evolved. Although most hypotheses assume indirect selection for evolvability, here we demonstrate that the ubiquitous, direct selection pressure to reduce the cost of connections between network nodes causes the emergence of modular networks. Computational evolution experiments with selection pressures to maximize network performance and minimize connection costs yield networks that are significantly more modular and more evolvable than control experiments that only select for performance. These results will catalyse research in numerous disciplines, such as neuroscience and genetics, and enhance our ability to harness evolution for engineering purposes.

Mots clés

Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
2013ACLI2788.pdf (1.11 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Publication financée par une institution
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-01300705 , version 1 (11-04-2016)

Identifiants

Citer

Jeff Clune, Jean-Baptiste Mouret, Hod Lipson. The evolutionary origins of modularity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2013, 280 pp.20122863. ⟨10.1098/rspb.2012.2863⟩. ⟨hal-01300705⟩
131 Consultations
161 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More