Evolutionary Simulations of Maternal Effects in Artificial Developmental Systems

Maternal influence on offspring goes beyond strict nuclear (DNA) inheritance: inherited maternal mRNA, mitochondria, caring and nurturing are all additional sources that affect offspring development, and they can be also shaped by evolution. These additional factors are called maternal effects, and their important role in evolution is well established experimentally. This paper presents two models for maternal effects, based on a genetic algorithm and simulated development of neural networks. We extended a model by Eggenberger by adding two mechanisms for maternal effects: the first mechanism attempts to replicate maternal cytoplasmic control, while the second mechanism replicates interactions between the fetus and the uterine environment. For examining the role of maternal effects in artificial evolution, we evolved networks for the odd-3-parity problem, using increasing rates of maternal influence. Experiments have shown that maternal effects increase adaptiveness in the latter model.