How does phenotypic plasticity affect the evolution of complex traits?

We use avida to evaluate the affect of phenotypic plasticity on the evolution of complex features.

• The capacity for plasticity?
• Pre-existing plasticity?

Rationale

Changing environments can facilitate the evolution of complex features. Plasticity counteracts environmental change from the perspective of a genotype.

Modifications to Avida

• Reaction sensor instructions
  • Inst_SenseReactNAND, ...

Experiments

• Capacity for plasticity
  • Evolve populations with access to sensors (sensors+) and populations without access to sensors (sensors-).
  • Environments:
    • fluctuating (sensors+ vs sensors-)
      • [NOT, AND, OR, NOR | NAND, ORN, ANDN, XOR], EQU
    • constant (sensors+ vs sensors-)
      • NOT, AND, OR, NOR NAND, ORN, ANDN, XOR, EQU
  • Measure number of populations that achieve EQU
• Pre-existing plasticity
  • Two-phase experiment: evolve populations (sensors+) for X generations with no reward for EQU. 'Freeze' plastic genotypes.
  • Seed populations with plastic ancestors. Seed equal number of populations with non-plastic ancestors (evolved w/out sensors).

TODO

• Data collection
  • mutation accumulation data