Figure 8
Possible evolutionary improvements of the metabolic replicator model. Panel A: Evolution of a new metabolic replicator (I n ). Panel B: Evolution of the replicase replicator (I R , dashed-dotted lines represent the replicase activity). Panel C: Evolution of an enzymatic replicator producing protocell-membrane elements (I M , the thick dashed line represents the membrane, and squares are the membrane units). I i (i = 1, .., 4) are the metabolic replicators on all panels and M stands for the metabolic reaction network. Solid, dashed and dotted-dashed arrows are the same as in Figure 1.