It's Not Survival of the Fittest: Evolution Occurs Without Competition

Is it really survival of the fittest? That may not be the case, according to new research. Computer scientists have discovered that the popular explanation of competition to survive in nature may not actually be necessary for evolvability to increase.

Evolvability is the capacity of a system for adaptive evolution. Essentially, it's the ability of a population of organisms to not merely generate genetic diversity, but to generate adaptive genetic diversity and evolve through natural selection.

In order to examine this process of evolution, researchers created a simulated model to mimic how organisms evolve. The model itself was based on a conceptual algorithm.

"The algorithms used for the simulations are abstractly based on how organisms are evolved, but not on any particular real-life organism," said lead author Joel Lehman in a press release.

After examining this model, the researchers found that evolvability can increase over generations regardless of whether species are competing for food, habitat or other factors. In other words, creatures can evolve without competitive pressure.

"The explanation is that evolvable organisms separate themselves naturally from less evolvable organisms over time simply by becoming increasingly diverse," said Kenneth O. Stanley, co-author of the paper detailing the study, in a news release.

In fact, the study could have implications for the origins of evolvability in many species, and could explain the diversity of species seen today. The findings are especially unusual since they're in contrast to most popular theories for why evolvability increases.

"When new species appear in the future, they are most likely descendants of those that were evolvable in the past," said Lehman. "The result is that evolvable species accumulate over time even without selective pressure."

The findings have important implications for future studies on evolvability. Traditional selective and adaptive explanations for the phenomena deserve more scrutiny and, in some cases, may even turn out to be unnecessary.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.