Neutrally Evolving Interlocking Complexity in the Quandary Den

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Quandary Den, an artificial life model to explore neutral evolution scenarios where complexity increases without additional informational needs, revealing two interlocking complexity mechanisms.

Contribution

It presents a novel artificial life model to study neutral evolution of complexity and identifies two interlocking complexity scenarios: subfunctionalization and masking.

Findings

Subfunctionalization causes functionality to diffuse through the complex.

Masking allows interference to accumulate, requiring expression-level blocking.

Abstract

Molecular biology features numerous complexes of proteins that coordinate in an interlocking fashion to fulfill different functions. Adaptive evolution explains some of this complexity, but needn't be the default when neutral explanations suffice. A new artificial life model ``organism,'' the Quandary Den, is introduced to explore different neutral evolution scenarios where complexity increases in the absence of greater informational needs. Two interlocking complexity scenarios emerge. Subfunctionalization leads to functionality diffusing through the complex. Masking allows intracomplex interference to accumulate genetically, requiring that it be blocked at the level of expression.