34,782 research outputs found
Emergent diversity in an open-ended evolving virtual community
Understanding the dynamics of biodiversity has
become an important line of research in theoretical ecology and,
in particular, conservation biology. However, studying the evolution
of ecological communities under traditional modeling approaches
based on differential calculus requires speciesʼ characteristics to be
predefined, which limits the generality of the results. An alternative
but less standardized methodology relies on intensive computer
simulation of evolving communities made of simple, explicitly
described individuals. We study here the formation, evolution, and
diversity dynamics of a community of virtual plants with a novel
individual-centered model involving three different scales: the
genetic, the developmental, and the physiological scales. It constitutes
an original attempt at combining development, evolution, and
population dynamics (based on multi-agent interactions) into one
comprehensive, yet simple model. In this world, we observe that our
simulated plants evolve increasingly elaborate canopies, which are
capable of intercepting ever greater amounts of light. Generated
morphologies vary from the simplest one-branch structure of
promoter plants to a complex arborization of several hundred
thousand branches in highly evolved variants. On the population
scale, the heterogeneous spatial structuration of the plant community
at each generation depends solely on the evolution of its component
plants. Using this virtual data, the morphologies and the dynamics
of diversity production were analyzed by various statistical methods,
based on genotypic and phenotypic distance metrics. The results
demonstrate that diversity can spontaneously emerge in a community
of mutually interacting individuals under the influence of specific
environmental conditions.This research
was partially supported by a grant for the GENEX project (P09-TIC-5123) from the Consejería de
Innovación y Ciencia de Andalucía. J.D.F. was supported by a FPU grant from the Spanish Ministerio
de Educación. R.D. wishes to thank the Région Ile-de-France for supporting his research position at
the Complex Systems Institute, Paris Ile-de-France
Simulations of embodied evolving semiosis: Emergent semantics in artificial environments
As we enter this amazing new world of artificial and virtual systems and environments in the context of human communities, we are interested in the development of systems and environments which have the capacity to grow and evolve their own meanings in the context of this community of interaction. In this paper we analyze the necessary conditions to achieve systems and environments with these properties: 1) a coupled interaction between a system and its environment; 2) an environment with sufficient initial richness and structure to allow for; 3) embodied emergent classification of that environment-system coupling; 4) which is subject to pragmatic selection
Embodied Evolution in Collective Robotics: A Review
This paper provides an overview of evolutionary robotics techniques applied
to on-line distributed evolution for robot collectives -- namely, embodied
evolution. It provides a definition of embodied evolution as well as a thorough
description of the underlying concepts and mechanisms. The paper also presents
a comprehensive summary of research published in the field since its inception
(1999-2017), providing various perspectives to identify the major trends. In
particular, we identify a shift from considering embodied evolution as a
parallel search method within small robot collectives (fewer than 10 robots) to
embodied evolution as an on-line distributed learning method for designing
collective behaviours in swarm-like collectives. The paper concludes with a
discussion of applications and open questions, providing a milestone for past
and an inspiration for future research.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl
Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic
Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic (March 25 - 27, 2018 -- The University of New Hampshire) paired two of NSF\u27s 10 Big Ideas: Navigating the New Arctic and Growing Convergence Research at NSF. During this event, participants assessed economic, environmental, and social impacts of Arctic change on New England and established convergence research initiatives to prepare for, adapt to, and respond to these effects. Shipping routes through an ice-free Northwest Passage in combination with modifications to ocean circulation and regional climate patterns linked to Arctic ice melt will affect trade, fisheries, tourism, coastal ecology, air and water quality, animal migration, and demographics not only in the Arctic but also in lower latitude coastal regions such as New England. With profound changes on the horizon, this is a critical opportunity for New England to prepare for uncertain yet inevitable economic and environmental impacts of Arctic change
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