Download or read book Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems written by Andreas Wagner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All living things are remarkably complex, yet their DNA is unstable, undergoing countless random mutations over generations. Despite this instability, most animals do not grow two heads or die, plants continue to thrive, and bacteria continue to divide. Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems tackles this perplexing paradox. The book explores why genetic changes do not cause organisms to fail catastrophically and how evolution shapes organisms' robustness. Andreas Wagner looks at this problem from the ground up, starting with the alphabet of DNA, the genetic code, RNA, and protein molecules, moving on to genetic networks and embryonic development, and working his way up to whole organisms. He then develops an evolutionary explanation for robustness. Wagner shows how evolution by natural selection preferentially finds and favors robust solutions to the problems organisms face in surviving and reproducing. Such robustness, he argues, also enhances the potential for future evolutionary innovation. Wagner also argues that robustness has less to do with organisms having plenty of spare parts (the redundancy theory that has been popular) and more to do with the reality that mutations can change organisms in ways that do not substantively affect their fitness. Unparalleled in its field, this book offers the most detailed analysis available of all facets of robustness within organisms. It will appeal not only to biologists but also to engineers interested in the design of robust systems and to social scientists concerned with robustness in human communities and populations.
Download or read book Evolvability written by Thomas F. Hansen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays on evolvability from the perspectives of quantitative and population genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, systems biology, macroevolution, and the philosophy of science. Evolvability—the capability of organisms to evolve—wasn’t recognized as a fundamental concept in evolutionary theory until 1990. Though there is still some debate as to whether it represents a truly new concept, the essays in this volume emphasize its value in enabling new research programs and facilitating communication among the major disciplines in evolutionary biology. The contributors, many of whom were instrumental in the development of the concept of evolvability, synthesize what we have learned about it over the past thirty years. They focus on the historical and philosophical contexts that influenced the emergence of the concept and suggest ways to develop a common language and theory to drive further evolvability research. The essays, drawn from a workshop on evolvability hosted in 2019–2020 by the Center of Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, in Oslo, provide scientific and historical background on evolvability. The contributors represent different disciplines of evolutionary biology, including quantitative and population genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, systems biology and macroevolution, as well as the philosophy of science. This pl[urality of approaches allows researchers in disciplines as diverse as developmental biology, molecular biology, and systems biology to communicate with those working in mainstream evolutionary biology. The contributors also discuss key questions at the forefront of research on evolvability. Contributors: J. David Aponte, W. Scott Armbruster, Geir H. Bolstad, Salomé Bourg, Ingo Brigandt, Anne Calof, James M. Cheverud, Josselin Clo, Frietson Galis, Mark Grabowski, Rebecca Green, Benedikt Hallgrímsson, Thomas F. Hansen, Agnes Holstad, David Houle, David Jablonski, Arthur Lander, Arnaud LeRouzic, Alan C. Love, Ralph Marcucio, Michael B. Morrissey, Laura Nuño de la Rosa, Øystein H. Opedal, Mihaela Pavličev, Christophe Pélabon, Jane M. Reid, Heather Richbourg, Jacqueline L. Sztepanacz, Masahito Tsuboi, Cristina Villegas, Marta Vidal-García, Kjetil L. Voje, Andreas Wagner, Günter P. Wagner, Nathan M. Young
Download or read book Evolvability written by Thomas F. Hansen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays on evolvability from the perspectives of quantitative and population genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, systems biology, macroevolution, and the philosophy of science. Evolvability—the capability of organisms to evolve—wasn’t recognized as a fundamental concept in evolutionary theory until 1990. Though there is still some debate as to whether it represents a truly new concept, the essays in this volume emphasize its value in enabling new research programs and facilitating communication among the major disciplines in evolutionary biology. The contributors, many of whom were instrumental in the development of the concept of evolvability, synthesize what we have learned about it over the past thirty years. They focus on the historical and philosophical contexts that influenced the emergence of the concept and suggest ways to develop a common language and theory to drive further evolvability research. The essays, drawn from a workshop on evolvability hosted in 2019–2020 by the Center of Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, in Oslo, provide scientific and historical background on evolvability. The contributors represent different disciplines of evolutionary biology, including quantitative and population genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, systems biology and macroevolution, as well as the philosophy of science. This pl[urality of approaches allows researchers in disciplines as diverse as developmental biology, molecular biology, and systems biology to communicate with those working in mainstream evolutionary biology. The contributors also discuss key questions at the forefront of research on evolvability. Contributors: J. David Aponte, W. Scott Armbruster, Geir H. Bolstad, Salomé Bourg, Ingo Brigandt, Anne Calof, James M. Cheverud, Josselin Clo, Frietson Galis, Mark Grabowski, Rebecca Green, Benedikt Hallgrímsson, Thomas F. Hansen, Agnes Holstad, David Houle, David Jablonski, Arthur Lander, Arnaud LeRouzic, Alan C. Love, Ralph Marcucio, Michael B. Morrissey, Laura Nuño de la Rosa, Øystein H. Opedal, Mihaela Pavličev, Christophe Pélabon, Jane M. Reid, Heather Richbourg, Jacqueline L. Sztepanacz, Masahito Tsuboi, Cristina Villegas, Marta Vidal-García, Kjetil L. Voje, Andreas Wagner, Günter P. Wagner, Nathan M. Young
Download or read book Evolvability Environments Embodiment Emergence in Robotics written by John H. Long and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2018-11-08 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embodied and evolving systems — biological or robotic — are interacting networks of structure, function, information, and behavior. Understanding these complex systems is the goal of the research presented in this book. We address different questions and hypotheses about four essential topics in complex systems: evolvability, environments, embodiment, and emergence. Using a variety of approaches, we provide different perspectives on an overarching, unifying question: How can embodied and evolutionary robotics illuminate (1) principles underlying biological evolving systems and (2) general analytical frameworks for studying embodied evolving systems? The answer — model biological processes to operate, develop, and evolve situated, embodied robots.
Download or read book Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems written by Andreas Wagner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-22 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All living things are remarkably complex, yet their DNA is unstable, undergoing countless random mutations over generations. Despite this instability, most animals do not grow two heads or die, plants continue to thrive, and bacteria continue to divide. Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems tackles this perplexing paradox. The book explores why genetic changes do not cause organisms to fail catastrophically and how evolution shapes organisms' robustness. Andreas Wagner looks at this problem from the ground up, starting with the alphabet of DNA, the genetic code, RNA, and protein molecules, moving on to genetic networks and embryonic development, and working his way up to whole organisms. He then develops an evolutionary explanation for robustness. Wagner shows how evolution by natural selection preferentially finds and favors robust solutions to the problems organisms face in surviving and reproducing. Such robustness, he argues, also enhances the potential for future evolutionary innovation. Wagner also argues that robustness has less to do with organisms having plenty of spare parts (the redundancy theory that has been popular) and more to do with the reality that mutations can change organisms in ways that do not substantively affect their fitness. Unparalleled in its field, this book offers the most detailed analysis available of all facets of robustness within organisms. It will appeal not only to biologists but also to engineers interested in the design of robust systems and to social scientists concerned with robustness in human communities and populations.
Download or read book Views on Evolvability of Embedded Systems written by Pierre Van de Laar and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-10-20 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolvability, the ability to respond effectively to change, represents a major challenge to today's high-end embedded systems, such as those developed in the medical domain by Philips Healthcare. These systems are typically developed by multi-disciplinary teams, located around the world, and are in constant need of upgrading to provide new advanced features, to deal with obsolescence, and to exploit emerging enabling technologies. Despite the importance of evolvability for these types of systems, the field has received scant attention from the scientific and engineering communities. Views on Evolvability of Embedded Systems focuses on the topic of evolvability of embedded systems from an applied scientific perspective. In particular, the book describes results from the Darwin project that researched evolvability in the context of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems. This project applied the Industry-as-Laboratory paradigm, in which industry and academia join forces to ensure continuous knowledge and technology transfer during the project’s lifetime. The Darwin project was a collaboration between the Embedded Systems Institute, the MRI business unit of Philips Healthcare, Philips Research, and five Dutch universities. Evolvability was addressed from a system engineering perspective by a number of researchers from different disciplines such as software-, electrical- and mechanical engineering, with a clear focus on economic decision making. The research focused on four areas: data mining, reference architectures, mechanisms and patterns for evolvability, in particular visualization & modelling, and economic decision making. Views on Evolvability of Embedded Systems is targeted at both researchers and practitioners; they will not only find a state-of-the-art overview on evolvability research, but also guidelines to make systems more evolvable and new industrially-validated techniques to improve the evolvability of embedded systems.
Download or read book The Plausibility of Life written by Marc W. Kirschner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-19 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two biologists tackle the unresolved question in the field of evolution: how have living organisms on Earth developed with such variety and complexity? In the 150 years since Darwin, the field of evolutionary biology has left a glaring gap in understanding how animals developed their astounding variety and complexity. The standard answer has been that small genetic mutations accumulate over time to produce wondrous innovations such as eyes and wings. Drawing on cutting-edge research across the spectrum of modern biology, Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart demonstrate how this stock answer is woefully inadequate. Rather they offer an original solution to the longstanding puzzle of how small random genetic change can be converted into complex, useful innovations. In a new theory they call “facilitated variation,” Kirschner and Gerhart elevate the individual organism from a passive target of natural selection to a central player in the 3-billion-year history of evolution. In clear, accessible language, the authors invite every reader to contemplate daring new ideas about evolution. By closing the major gap in Darwin’s theory Kirschner and Gerhart also provide a timely scientific rebuttal to modern critics of evolution who champion “intelligent design.” “Makes for informative and enjoyable reading, and the issues the authors raise are worthy of attention.”—American Scientist “Thought-provoking and lucidly written…The Plausibility of Life will help readers understand not just the plausibility of evolution, but its remarkable, inventive powers.”—Sean Carroll, author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo
Download or read book Building Evolutionary Architectures written by Neal Ford and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The software development ecosystem is constantly changing, providing a constant stream of new tools, frameworks, techniques, and paradigms. Over the past few years, incremental developments in core engineering practices for software development have created the foundations for rethinking how architecture changes over time, along with ways to protect important architectural characteristics as it evolves. This practical guide ties those parts together with a new way to think about architecture and time.
Download or read book Self Evolvable Systems written by Octavian Iordache and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph presents key method to successfully manage the growing complexity of systems where conventional engineering and scientific methodologies and technologies based on learning and adaptability come to their limits and new ways are nowadays required. The transition from adaptable to evolvable and finally to self-evolvable systems is highlighted, self-properties such as self-organization, self-configuration, and self-repairing are introduced and challenges and limitations of the self-evolvable engineering systems are evaluated.
Download or read book Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology written by Alessandro Minelli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrates molecular genetics with comparative morphology to give a comprehensive view of the evolution of plant development.
Download or read book Stress Induced Mutagenesis written by David Mittelman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discovery of stress-induced mutagenesis has changed ideas about mutation and evolution, and revealed mutagenic programs that differ from standard spontaneous mutagenesis in rapidly proliferating cells. The stress-induced mutations occur during growth-limiting stress, and can include adaptive mutations that allow growth in the otherwise growth-limiting environment. The stress responses increase mutagenesis specifically when cells are maladapted to their environments, i.e. are stressed, potentially accelerating evolution then. The mutation mechanism also includes temporary suspension of post-synthesis mismatch repair, resembling mutagenesis characteristic of some cancers. Stress-induced mutation mechanisms may provide important models for genome instability underlying some cancers and genetic diseases, resistance to chemotherapeutic and antibiotic drugs, pathogenicity of microbes, and many other important evolutionary processes. This book covers pathways of stress-induced mutagenesis in all systems. The principle focus is mammalian systems, but much of what is known of these pathways comes from non-mammalian systems.
Download or read book Robustness Plasticity and Evolvability in Mammals written by Clara B. Jones and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-06-06 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the unresolved topics in evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology are the origins, mechanisms, evolution, and consequences of developmental and phenotypic diversity. In an attempt to address these challenges, plasticity has been investigated empirically and theoretically at all levels of biological organization—from biochemical to whole organism and beyond to the population, community, and ecosystem levels. Less commonly explored are constraints (e.g., ecological), costs (e.g., increased response error), perturbations (e.g., alterations in selection intensity), and stressors (e.g., resource limitation) influencing not only selective values of heritable phenotypic components but, also, decisions and choices (not necessarily conscious ones) available to individuals in populations. Treating extant mammals, the primary purpose of the proposed work is to provide new perspectives on common themes in the literature on robustness (“functional diversity”; differential resistance to “deconstraint” of conserved elements) and weak robustness (the potential to restrict plasticity and evolvability), plasticity (variation expressed throughout the lifetimes of individuals in a population setting “evolvability potential”), and evolvability (non-lethal phenotypic novelties induced by endogenous and/or exogenous stimuli). The proposed project will place particular emphasis upon the adaptive complex in relation to endogenous (e.g., genomes, neurophysiology) and exogenous (abiotic and biotic, including social environments) organismal features discussed as regulatory and environmental perturbations with the potential to induce, and, often, constrain variability and novelty of form and function
Download or read book Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology written by Alessandro Minelli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to animals, plants have been largely neglected in evolutionary developmental biology. Mainstream research has focused on developmental genetics, while a rich body of knowledge in comparative morphology is still to be exploited. No integrated account is available. In this volume, Minelli fills this gap using the same approach he gave to animals, revisiting traditional concepts and providing an articulated analysis of genetic and molecular data. Topics covered include leaf complexity and the evolution of flower organs, handedness, branching patterns, flower symmetry and synorganization, and less conventional topics such as fractal patterns of plant organization. Also discussed is the hitherto neglected topic of the evolvability of temporal phenotypes like a plant's annual, biennial or perennial life cycle, flowering time and the timing of abscission of flower organs. This will be informative reading for anyone in the field of plant evo-devo, from students to lecturers and researchers.
Download or read book The Century of the Gene written by Evelyn Fox KELLER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a book that promises to change the way we think and talk about genes and genetic determinism, Evelyn Fox Keller, one of our most gifted historians and philosophers of science, provides a powerful, profound analysis of the achievements of genetics and molecular biology in the twentieth century, the century of the gene. Not just a chronicle of biology’s progress from gene to genome in one hundred years, The Century of the Gene also calls our attention to the surprising ways these advances challenge the familiar picture of the gene most of us still entertain. Keller shows us that the very successes that have stirred our imagination have also radically undermined the primacy of the gene—word and object—as the core explanatory concept of heredity and development. She argues that we need a new vocabulary that includes concepts such as robustness, fidelity, and evolvability. But more than a new vocabulary, a new awareness is absolutely crucial: that understanding the components of a system (be they individual genes, proteins, or even molecules) may tell us little about the interactions among these components. With the Human Genome Project nearing its first and most publicized goal, biologists are coming to realize that they have reached not the end of biology but the beginning of a new era. Indeed, Keller predicts that in the new century we will witness another Cambrian era, this time in new forms of biological thought rather than in new forms of biological life.
Download or read book Evolution as Computation written by Laura F. Landweber and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of the genetic basis for evolution has flourished in this century, as well as our understanding of the evolvability and programmability of biological systems. Genetic algorithms meanwhile grew out of the realization that a computer program could use the biologically-inspired processes of mutation, recombination, and selection to solve hard optimization problems. Genetic and evolutionary programming provide further approaches to a wide variety of computational problems. A synthesis of these experiences reveals fundamental insights into both the computational nature of biological evolution and processes of importance to computer science. Topics include biological models of nucleic acid information processing and genome evolution; molecules, cells, and metabolic circuits that compute logical relationships; the origin and evolution of the genetic code; and the interface with genetic algorithms and genetic and evolutionary programming.
Download or read book Extended Heredity written by Russell Bonduriansky and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bonduriansky and Day challenge the premise that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide the raw material for natural selection. They explore the latest research showing that what happens during our lifetimes—and even our parents’ and grandparents’ lifetimes—can influence the features of our descendants. Based on this evidence, Bonduriansky and Day develop an extended concept of heredity that upends ideas about how traits can and cannot be transmitted across generations, opening the door to a new understanding of inheritance, evolution, and even human health. --Adapted from publisher description.
Download or read book Modularity in Development and Evolution written by Gerhard Schlosser and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-07 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modularity in Development and Evolution offers the first sustained exploration of modules from developmental and evolutionary perspectives. Contributors discuss what modularity is, how it can be identified and modeled, how it originated and evolved, and its biological significance. Covering modules at levels ranging from genes to colonies, the book focuses on their roles not just in structures but also in processes such as gene regulation. Among many exciting findings, the contributors demonstrate how modules can highlight key constraints on evolutionary processes. A timely synthesis of a crucial topic, Modularity in Development and Evolution shows the invaluable insights modules can give into both developmental complexities and their evolutionary origins.
