Seminar 22nd February 2013 noon National Oceanography Centre, Level 4, Node 6 Boardroom (03)
Computer simulation of evolution over palaeontological timescales: a new approach
Dr Mark Sutton
Imperial
- Submitter
- Luke Goater
Computer simulation of evolution over palaeontological timescales: a new approach
Neodarwinian evolution can be viewed as an algorithmic process, and as such is amenable to computer simulation. Simulation enables controlled study of evolution, and is hence a powerful means of evaluating the validity and theoretical underpinning of emergent evolutionary phenomena observed in nature. Simulations of microevolution have been routinely performed for some time, most notably in recent years through using the AVIDA platform. Macroevolutionary processes and patterns however, occurring over palaeontological timescales and ideally taking into account geography and complex environmental fluctuations, are more difficult to simulate from first principles using existing approaches. This talk introduces EVOSIM, a new software package optimised for high-speed evolutionary simulation of sexually reproducing organisms over million-year timescales. Simulation takes place on an environment 'grid', visualised as a bitmap image in which environment is represented by colour. Novel computational tricks allow populations of 250,000+ organisms to be iterated for millions of years per day on unspecialised desktop computers. In these simulations speciation emerges from first principles, and species origination, geographical range, and phylogeny can be tracked automatically. Environments can be modified over time in a flexible manner, enabling events such as mass extinctions to be simulated and studied under controlled conditions. EVOSIM is still in late-stage development, but preliminary test-studies appear to demonstrate a punctuated equilibrium pattern as an emergent phenomenon.