Evolution of genetic organization in digital organisms

TL;DR

This paper investigates how genetic organization evolves in digital organisms, revealing the development of complex expression patterns, the impact of overlapping expressions on variation, and differences in entropy between genome sections.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of genetic organization evolution in digital organisms, highlighting the role of overlapping expressions and information theory in evolutionary dynamics.

Findings

Development of complex, parallel expression patterns

Overlapping expressions reduce variation and evolutionary potential

Significant entropy differences between overlapping and singly expressed genome sections

Abstract

We examine the evolution of expression patterns and the organization of genetic information in populations of self-replicating digital organisms. Seeding the experiments with a linearly expressed ancestor, we witness the development of complex, parallel secondary expression patterns. Using principles from information theory, we demonstrate an evolutionary pressure towards overlapping expressions causing variation (and hence further evolution) to sharply drop. Finally, we compare the overlapping sections of dominant genomes to those portions which are singly expressed and observe a significant difference in the entropy of their encoding.