Open problems in artificial life
Artificial Life - Special issue on the Artificial Life VII: looking backward, looking forward
ECAL '99 Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Advances in Artificial Life
Viscous populations and their support for reciprocal cooperation
Artificial Life
Evolutionary transitions and artificial life
Artificial Life
The role of collective reproduction in evolution
ECAL'07 Proceedings of the 9th European conference on Advances in artificial life
Investigating the emergence of multicellularity using a population of neural network agents
PPSN'06 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature
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The transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms is one of the mysteries of evolutionary biology. Individual cells must give up their rights to reproduction and reproduce instead as part of a whole. I review and model the macrocyst stage in slime mould (Dictyostelium) evolution to investigate why an organism might have something to gain from joining a collective reproduction strategy. The macrocyst is a reproductive cartel where individual cells aggregate and form a large zygotic cell which then eats the other aggregating cells. The offspring all have the same genetic code. The model is a steady state genetic algorithm at an individual cellular level. An individual’s genetic code determines a threshold above which it will reproduce and a threshold below which it will join a macrocyst. I find that cycles in food availability can play an important role in an organism’s likelihood of joining the macrocyst. The results also demonstrate how the macrocyst may be an important precursor to other cooperative behaviours.