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2016 ; 12
(6
): e1004829
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The Evolutionary Origins of Hierarchy
#MMPMID27280881
Mengistu H
; Huizinga J
; Mouret JB
; Clune J
PLoS Comput Biol
2016[Jun]; 12
(6
): e1004829
PMID27280881
show ga
Hierarchical organization-the recursive composition of sub-modules-is ubiquitous
in biological networks, including neural, metabolic, ecological, and genetic
regulatory networks, and in human-made systems, such as large organizations and
the Internet. To date, most research on hierarchy in networks has been limited to
quantifying this property. However, an open, important question in evolutionary
biology is why hierarchical organization evolves in the first place. It has
recently been shown that modularity evolves because of the presence of a cost for
network connections. Here we investigate whether such connection costs also tend
to cause a hierarchical organization of such modules. In computational
simulations, we find that networks without a connection cost do not evolve to be
hierarchical, even when the task has a hierarchical structure. However, with a
connection cost, networks evolve to be both modular and hierarchical, and these
networks exhibit higher overall performance and evolvability (i.e. faster
adaptation to new environments). Additional analyses confirm that hierarchy
independently improves adaptability after controlling for modularity. Overall,
our results suggest that the same force-the cost of connections-promotes the
evolution of both hierarchy and modularity, and that these properties are
important drivers of network performance and adaptability. In addition to
shedding light on the emergence of hierarchy across the many domains in which it
appears, these findings will also accelerate future research into evolving more
complex, intelligent computational brains in the fields of artificial
intelligence and robotics.
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