Fig. 8

Overview of the Aevol model (a) The population is contained on a grid. It reproduces at each generation with complete replacement. (b) Each individual owns a circular genome with scattered genes identified through initiation/termination signals (promoters, terminators, RBS, Start/Stop codons). Genes are translated into a set of proteins, each one contributing to some phenotypic traits with a certain level (phenotypic trait, level of contribution and level of pleiotropy are encoded in the gene’s sequence). All proteins are grouped to form the phenotype and the difference between the phenotype and the environmental function (light red) gives the metabolic error (see main text for details). (c) Each individual competes with its local Moore neighborhood. An individual can have 0 (if it looses all the replication competitions it participates to) to 9 (if it wins all the replication competitions) offspring at each time steps. (d) During replication, the genome can undergo large chromosomal rearrangements (here an inversion and a translocation) and small mutations (switches, InDels)