Robot Simulations Show Mass Extinctions May Accelerate Evolution

[Potoooooooo]

http://io9.com/robot-simulations-show-mass-extinctions-may-accelerate-1724107663


By simulating a mass extinction on a population of virtual robots, researchers have shown that these cataclysmic events are an important contributor to an organism’s ability to evolve, a finding that has implications to evolutionary biology, the business sector—and even artificial intelligence.

It’s no surprise that mass extinctions exert a tremendous influence on evolution. If it hadn’t been for the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, for example, mammals would likely have never supplanted dinosaurs in many ecological niches. What’s less established, however, is whether or not mass extinctions produce consistent evolutionary outcomes with measurable effects. By using computer models, a research team from the University of Texas at Austin has presented compelling evidence in support of the hypothesis that repeated extinction events do in fact contribute to an increase in evolvability. The details of their research can now be found at PLOS ONE.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

Of course. Mass extinction opens a lot of biological niches. If there is a niche, something will evolve to occupy it.

Eldarion Lathria

 

[exodiasrightleg]

Good for the survivors, not so much for the majority of species that went extinct.

 

[skepticalbip]

The headline of that article is misleading. It implies that mass extinctions were not known to accelerate speciation until their model showed it did. A better headline would be "Computer programmers write program that simulates what is already known about the effects of mass extinctions on evolution."

 

[barbos]

The headline of that article is misleading. It implies that mass extinctions were not known to accelerate speciation until their model showed it did. A better headline would be "Computer programmers write program that simulates what is already known about the effects of mass extinctions on evolution."

It was not known by computer programmers, so better headline would have been "computer programmers don't know much about evolution"