How adaptive plasticity evolves when selected against

Diversity against adversity: How adaptive immunity evolves potent antibodies

How does immune system evolve functional proteins – potent antibodies in such a short time? We address this question using a microscopic, protein-level, sequence-based model of humoral immune response with explicitly defined interactions between Immunoglobulins, host and pathogen proteins. Potent Immunoglobulins are discovered in this model via clonal selection and affinity maturation. Possible...

Adaptive developmental plasticity: what is it, how can we recognize it and when can it evolve?

Developmental plasticity describes situations where a specific input during an individual's development produces a lasting alteration in phenotype. Some instances of developmental plasticity may be adaptive, meaning that the tendency to produce the phenotype conditional on having experienced the developmental input has been under positive selection. We discuss the necessary assumptions and pred...

Why and How Brain Size Evolves

How altruism evolves: assortment and synergy.

If one defines altruism strictly at the population level such that carriers of the altruistic genotype are required to experience, on average, a net fitness cost relative to average population members, then altruism can never evolve. This is simply because a genetically encoded trait can only increase in a population (relative to alternative traits) if the mean fitness of individuals carrying t...

How XCS Evolves Accurate Classi ers

Due to the accuracy based tness approach, the ultimate goal for XCS is the evolution of a compact, complete, and accurate payo mapping of an environment. This paper investigates what causes the XCS classi er system to evolve accurate classi ers. The investigation leads to two challenges for XCS, the covering challenge and the schema challenge. Both challenges are revealed theoretically and expe...