Evolution, Sympatric Speciation, and Risk Aversion

Abstract

Speciation is a crucial topic in the biological sciences. Knowledge of this process helps explain the diversity of life. In the computational realm, considerable efforts have been made to understand mechanisms and conditions that lead to speciation. Speciation has profound implications for artificial life, evolutionary computation, and evolutionary robotics, yet many aspects of it remain unexplored. Resource distribution is one of the key factors in natural selection, which is critical for sympatric speciation. Research on speciation typically assumes that there is a consistent supply of resources in each available niche. However, fluctuations in available resources might have strong impacts on the extent to which niches are occupied. Such fluctuations could be seen as analogous to risk in economics. Moreover, just as risk necessarily leads to risk aversion in reinforcement learning agents, so might fluctuations in resources lead to a phenomenon analogous to risk aversion in evolution. In this study, the effects of fluctuations in resource distribution are investigated in a simulated biological setting that has been established to favor sympatric speciation. We conclude that fluctuations in resource distribution lead to risk aversion in the process of evolution.