Adaptive Populations of Endogenously Diversifying Pushpop Organisms are Reliably Diverse

Lee Spector
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA 01002
lspector@hampshire.edu

Abstract:

This paper discusses the evolution of diversifying reproduction. We measured the average difference between mothers and their children, the number of species, and the degree of adaptation in evolving populations of endogenously diversifying digital organisms  using the Pushpop  system. The data show that the number of species in adaptive populations is higher than in non-adaptive populations, while the variance in the differences between mothers and their children is less for adaptive populations than for non-adaptive populations. In other words, in adaptive populations the species were more numerous and the diversification processes were more reliable.



Russell Standish
2002-11-13