Extending artificial development: exploiting environmental information for the achievement of phenotypic plasticity

  • Authors:

  • Gunnar Tufte;Pauline C. Haddow

  • Affiliations:

  • The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Computer and Information Science, Trondheim, Norway;The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Computer and Information Science, Trondheim, Norway

  • Venue:
  • ICES'07 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Evolvable systems: from biology to hardware
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

Biological organisms have an inherent ability to respond to environmental changes. The response can emerge as organisms that can develop to structural and behavioural different phenotypes. The cue to what phenotypic property to express is cued by the environment. This implies that the information necessary for a single genotype to develop to different phenotypes is the genome itself and the information provided by the environment i.e. phenotypic plasticity. This concept is incorporated in the development model presented herein so as to demonstrate how an evolved genome can express different phenotypes depending on the present environment which the phenotype has to develop and survive in. An experimental approach is used to show the concept to evolved robust behaviour in different environments and to evolve genomes that can be triggered to express different behaviour depending on the present environment.