This document describes in silico experimental evolution as a tool to test evolutionary scenarios. In silico experimental evolution involves evolving digital organisms in a computer simulation to model evolutionary processes like natural selection and mutation. The Aevol platform allows users to conduct in silico experimental evolution by defining digital organisms as structured genomes and simulating their evolution over generations through processes of selection, replication with mutation, and rearrangement. This approach can help test evolutionary scenarios derived from comparative genomics more rigorously than in vitro experimental evolution by facilitating control over variables and reproducibility.
7. In silico experimental evolution
Population of
sequences /
Phenotype
Selection processVariation process
Changes in
lifestyle
Changes in
mutation
processes
Evolutionary
loop
Analysis of evolved
βorganismsβ
7
Β