Spontaneous emergence of modularity in a model of evolving individuals |
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Authors: | Sun Jun Deem Michael W |
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Affiliation: | Department of Physics & Astronomy and Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1892, USA. |
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Abstract: | We investigate the selective forces that promote the emergence of modularity in nature. We demonstrate the spontaneous emergence of modularity in a population of individuals that evolve in a changing environment. We show that the level of modularity correlates with the rapidity and severity of environmental change. The modularity arises as a synergistic response to the noise in the environment in the presence of horizontal gene transfer. We suggest that the hierarchical structure observed in the natural world may be a broken-symmetry state, which generically results from evolution in a changing environment. |
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