Algorithms, games, and evolution
Abstract
Theoretical biology was founded on the mathematical tools of statistics and physics. We believe there are productive connections to be made with the younger field of theoretical computer science, which shares with it an interest in complexity and functionality. In this paper, we find that the mathematical description of evolution in the presence of sexual recombination and weak selection is equivalent to a repeated game between genes played according to the multiplicative weight updates algorithm, an algorithm that has surprised computer scientists time and again in its usefulness. This equivalence is informative for the pursuit of two key problems in evolution: the role of sex and the maintenance of variation.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- July 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1406556111
- Bibcode:
- 2014PNAS..11110620C