The evolutionary origins of modularity.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Clune J
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3574393 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
The evolutionary origins of modularity.
Clune Jeff J Mouret Jean-Baptiste JB Lipson Hod H
Proceedings. Biological sciences 20130130 1755
A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks--their organization as functional, sparsely connected subunits--but there is no consensus regarding why modularity itself evolved. Although most hypotheses assume indirect selection for evolvability, here we demonstrate that the ubiquitous, direct selection pressure to reduce the cost of connect ...[more]
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