Hmm Roger. I always thought that unpredictable environments contribute more
within-species diversitity and FEWER species.
Nick
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Critchlow
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 8/14/2007 3:48:42 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] Evolution in varying environments
Back to complexity for a moment.
Here are two open access preprints from PNAS that I found while looking for the
new map of Angkor Wat.
The first is about speeding up artificial evolution by changing the
environment:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0611630104v1
I haven't read enough to see how they identify the "modules" into which they
decompose the phenotype so they can select different subsets of modules on each
environmental change.
The second, which was published a day earlier, is about the same thing, only
for real. The environment in Madagascar is diverse, but the diverse regions
all share an unpredictable rainfall through the year and year to year. This
unpredictability is proposed to contribute to the unusual diversity of mammals
found.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0704346104v1
-- rec --============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
