Adapting to Adaptations: Behavioural Strategies that are Robust to Mutations and Other Organisational-Transformations.

Matthew D Egbert,Juan Pérez-Mercader

doi:10.1038/srep18963

Matthew D Egbert, Juan Pérez-Mercader

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18963

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Abstract

Genetic mutations, infection by parasites or symbionts, and other events can transform the way that an organism’s internal state changes in response to a given environment. We use a minimalistic computational model to support an argument that by behaving “interoceptively,” i.e. responding to internal state rather than to the environment, organisms can be robust to these organisational-transformations. We suggest that the robustness of interoceptive behaviour is due, in part, to the asymmetrical relationship between an organism and its environment, where the latter more substantially influences the former than vice versa. This relationship means that interoceptive behaviour can respond to the environment, the internal state and the interaction between the two, while exteroceptive behaviour can only respond to the environment. We discuss the possibilities that (i) interoceptive behaviour may play an important role of facilitating adaptive evolution (especially in the early evolution of primitive life) and (ii) interoceptive mechanisms could prove useful in efforts to create more robust synthetic life-forms.

Highlights

Genetic mutations, infection by parasites or symbionts, and other events can transform the way that an organism’s internal state changes in response to a given environment
We suggest that the robustness of interoceptive behaviour is due, in part, to the asymmetrical relationship between an organism and its environment, where the latter more substantially influences the former than vice versa
We discuss the possibilities that (i) interoceptive behaviour may play an important role of facilitating adaptive evolution and (ii) interoceptive mechanisms could prove useful in efforts to create more robust synthetic life-forms

Summary

Introduction

Infection by parasites or symbionts, and other events can transform the way that an organism’s internal state changes in response to a given environment. Behaviour is predominantly seen as exteroceptive —driven by a response to environmental cues (e.g.5–7), but there are examples of interoceptive behaviour, where for instance, movement is driven by a response to the internal-state of the organism —see, for instance, the metabolism-dependent chemotaxis of several species of bacteria[8,9,10,11] Events such as genetic mutations, infection by parasites or symbionts, and chance environmental encounters can modify the way that an organism’s internal state changes in response to a given environment. Some of these organisational-transformations provide a fitness advantage, but the majority are deleterious. Neo-Darwinian evolution would be too slow to produce the required adaptation as either (a) the organisational-transformation is not heritable and there would be no chance for natural selection to operate, or (b) even in the cases where the organisational-transformation is heritable, most are neutral or deleterious and so natural selection or genetic drift would likely eliminate them[12] in a small number of generations[13], before the adaptation in regulation could take place

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