Fig. 8

Model of one versus two informative environments. We compared evolution of a trait controlling the distribution of memory, in this case the current level of protection, between the sessile mother and the motile daughter cell following cell division in two different scenarios. Environments were generated according to the state diagram for informative environments (Fig. 6e). Only the first 2’000 of 100’000 time steps are shown. a Upon cell division both the mother and the daughter cell remained in the same environment. In this case we expect memory of past events to be equally relevant for both cell types. We thus expected the evolution of a memory distribution factor of 0.5. b When cells divided, the motile daughter cell had a 50% chance to either stay in the same environment or to be moved to the other environment (we extended the simulations to 5 environments in Additional file 5: Figure S9.7c). In this case we expected memory to be distributed asymmetrically upon cell division. This can be realized by the evolvable memory distribution factor to deviate from 0.5