AGING IN HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT MODELED BY CELLULAR AUTOMATA WITH GENETIC DYNAMICS
Witold Dzwinel, David A. Yuen · International Journal of Modern Physics C · 2005
We model the evolution of a population on a 2D cellular automata (CA) lattice. Every individual holds a binary "genetic code". The code length and the number of "1"s in the chain correspond to the maximal and actual life-time of individual, respectively. The "genetic code" code is divided onto three life-episodes: "youth", "maturity" and "old age". Only "mature" individuals can procreate. We investigate the duration of the life-episodes and their role in protecting the population from extinction in hostile environments. We observe that in the stable environment, which does not influence the life-time of individuals, the "youth" and the "maturity" periods extend extremely long during evolution, while the "old age" remains short. The situation is different for hostile plaque-like conditions. Under these circumstances, the "youth" period vanishes, while the longer "old age" period stabilizes the population growth, increases its average age and thereby increases its chance of survival. We can conclude that the idle life-episodes set up the control mechanisms, which allow for self-adaptation of the population to varying environmental conditions.