The diversity and quality of natural systems have been a puzzle and inspiration for communities studying artificial life. It is now widely admitted that the adaptation mechanisms enabling these properties are largely influenced by the environments they inhabit. Organisms facing environmental variability have two alternative adaptation mechanisms operating at different timescales: \textit{plasticity}, the ability of a phenotype to survive in diverse environments and \textit{evolvability}, the ability to adapt through mutations. Although vital under environmental variability, both mechanisms are associated with fitness costs hypothesized to render them unnecessary in stable environments. In this work, we study the interplay between environmental dynamics and adaptation in a minimal model of the evolution of plasticity and evolvability. We experiment with different types of environments characterized by the presence of niches and a climate function that determines the fitness landscape. We empirically show that environmental dynamics affect plasticity and evolvability differently and that the presence of diverse ecological niches favors adaptability even in stable environments. We perform ablation studies of the selection mechanisms to separate the role of fitness-based selection and niche-limited competition. Results obtained from our minimal model allow us to propose promising research directions in the study of open-endedness in biological and artificial systems.
翻译:自然系统的多样性和质量一直是研究人工生命的社区的一个迷惑和激励因素,现在人们广泛承认,使这些特性具有这些特性的适应机制在很大程度上受到它们所居住环境的影响。面临环境变异的有机体有两种不同的适应机制,它们在不同的时间尺度上运作:\textit{塑料},一种动物类型在不同环境中生存的能力,以及通过突变适应的能力。虽然在环境变异的情况下,这两种机制都至关重要,但是在环境变异的情况下,它们都与健身费用有关,因此在稳定的环境下不必要。在这项工作中,我们研究环境动态与适应之间的相互作用,以可塑性和可变性演变的最低限度模式来研究这些特性。我们实验了不同种类的环境,其特点是有位置和气候功能,决定着健康的景观。我们从经验上表明,环境动态影响着可塑性和可变性,而多样性的生态位置的存在有利于适应性,即使在稳定的环境中也是如此。我们对选择机制的健身选用成本和适量竞争的作用进行了消化研究。我们从最起码的模型中获得的结果使我们能在生物系统中提出有希望的研究方向。