18 papers · ranked by Valyu relevance
Kimberly L. Cooper
Humans are curious to understand the causes of traits that distinguish us from other animals and that distinguish vastly different species from one another. We also have a proclivity for simple stories and sometimes tend toward seeking and accepting simple genetic explanations for large evolutionary shifts, even to a…
Jonathan Rolland, Daniele Silvestro, Glenn Litsios, Laurélène Faye + 1 more
'Nicolas Salamin'] The difference between rapid morphological evolutionary changes observed in populations and the long periods of stasis detected in the fossil record has raised a decade-long debate about the exact role played by intraspecific mechanisms at the interspecific level. Although they represent different…
Fabio A. Machado, Carrie S. Mongle, Graham Slater, Anna Penna + 4 more
Studies of macroevolution have classically rejected the notion that large-scale divergence patterns can be explained through populational, microevolutionary models. For morphology, this consensus partly derives from the inability of quantitative genetics models to correctly predict the behavior of evolutionary…
Sushil J. Louis, Siming Liu
—We attack the problem of controlling teams of autonomous units during skirmishes in real-time strategy games. Earlier work had shown promise in evolving control algorithm parameters that lead to high performance team behaviors similar to those favored by good human players in real-time strategy games like Starcraft.…
Yingnan Gao, Martin Wu
On the macroevolutionary timescale, does trait evolution proceed gradually or by rapid bursts (pulses) separated by prolonged periods of stasis or slow evolution? Although studies have shown pulsed evolution is prevalent in animals, our knowledge about the tempo and mode of evolution across the tree of life is very…
Julian Z. Xue, Leonid Chindelevich, Frédéric Guichard
Many well-documented macro-evolutionary phenomena, such as increases in organization hierarchy, or sudden and episodic creation of new taxa, still challenge current evolutionary theories. Here we show a new mechanism that can explain them. We begin by showing how the order of mutations can alter evolutionary…
Navin K Adhikari, Sushil J. Louis, Siming Liu, Walker Spurgeon
—We investigate competitive co-evolution of unit micromanagement in real-time strategy games. Although good longterm macro-strategy and good short-term unit micromanagement both impact real-time strategy games performance, this paper focuses on generating quality micro. Better micro, for example, can help players win…
James M. Alfieri, Kevin Bolwerk, Zhaobo Hu, Heath Blackmon
Birds display striking variation in chromosome number, defying the traditional view of highly conserved avian karyotypes. However, the evolutionary drivers of this variability remain unclear. To address this, we fit probabilistic models of chromosome number evolution across birds, enabling us to estimate rates of…
Richard E. Lenski, W. Ford Doolittle
Ever since Darwin, the role of natural selection in shaping the morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptations of animals and plants across generations has been central to understanding life and its diversity. New discoveries have shown with increasing precision how genetic, molecular, and biochemical…
Thibault Genissel, Alexandre Robert, Jane Lecomte, François Sarrazin
The growing awareness of evolutionary responses to human-induced environmental changes highlights the need to better understand and integrate evolutionary perspectives into life sciences and, more broadly, into biodiversity conservation. Evolutionary changes are complex and multi-causal, operating across numerous…
Brian P. Waldron, Eliza Tarimo, Palash Sashittal, Noel Naughton + 2 more
Thermal physiological traits such as body temperature often show surprisingly slow evolutionary rates over macroevolutionary time, despite apparent lability at microevolutionary time scales. While long-term stabilizing selection may slow rates of thermal evolution, we propose an alternative hypothesis from a bottom-up…
Karissa Plum, Jason Tarkington, Rebecca A. Zufall, Cristina Miceli + 2 more
'Adriana Vallesi' 'Ronald Edward Pearlman'] Experimental evolution has provided novel insight into a wide array of biological processes. Species in the genus Tetrahymena are proving to be a highly useful system for studying a range of questions using experimental evolution. Their unusual genomic architecture, diversity…
Richard A. Neher, Aleksandra M. Walczak
Evolution has fascinated quantitative and physical scientists for decades: how can the random process of mutation, recombination, and duplication of genetic information generate the diversity of life? What determines the rate of evolution? Are there quantitative laws that govern and constrain evolution? Is evolution…
Yuri Bakhtin, Mikhail I. Katsnelson, Yuri I. Wolf, Eugene V. Koonin
Punctuated equilibrium is a mode of evolution in which phenetic change occurs in rapid bursts that are separated by much longer intervals of stasis during which mutations accumulate but no major phenotypic change occurs. Punctuated equilibrium has been originally proposed within the framework of paleobiology, to…
Adi Livnat
The theory of interaction-based evolution argues that, at the most basic level of analysis, there is a third alternative for how adaptive evolution works besides a) accidental mutation and natural selection and b) Lamarckism, namely, c) information provided by natural selection on the fit between the organism and its…
Amit Kahana, Lior Segev, Doron Lancet
The origin of life must have involved an unlikely transition from chaotic chemistry to reproducing supramolecular structures. Previous quantitative analyses of reproducing mutually catalytic networks made of simple molecules have led to increasing popularity of this pre-RNA scenario for life’s origin. Here, we…
Robert Worden
In 1995 I wrote a paper 'A Speed Limit for Evolution' – whose main result was that evolution must proceed rather slowly, in accordance with the earlier views and intuitions of many authors. The abstract of the paper said: 'An upper bound on the speed of evolution is derived. The bound concerns the amount of genetic…
Tim Taylor
This paper presents a high-level conceptual framework to help orient the discussion and implementation of open-endedness in evolutionary systems. Drawing upon earlier work by Banzhaf et al., three different kinds of open-endedness are identified: exploratory, expansive, and transformational. These are characterised in…