I'm currently looking at a program called "Darwin Pond". Some of you may have heard of it. If you haven't, look it up in google. It simulates a simple ecosystem that consists of food (that you can tweak to replicate quickly, slowly, spread quickly or slowly, how much energy it gives etc.) and swimmers. Swimmers are the evolutionary things in this program. They mutate, breed, and eat stuff. I think it is a great demonstration of how evolution works. The selective pressures are thus:
How quickly a swimmer can get food (coupled with how much energy it takes... e.g. A fast, but inefficient way of getting food may result in extinction after a few generations, or always eating and never breeding)
How attractive a swimmer is to another (goes against efficiency... More legs = more attractive, but less efficient)
Efficiency
Amount of food
I am currently running this program, and have gotten up to my second "mass extinction". Previously, the dominant species was a three legged purple thing, that has apparently bred itself out. It can still be seen as a few hybrids (green/blue/purple three leggers). By the end of its run, it was fairly fast, but also rather inefficient. The eventual destruction of the species was a result of being too concentrated, and consuming all of the food in its area. While it did so, another area had an increase in food (due to a lack of swimmers). The closest swimmers to this new source were green, single legged swimmers.
The green swimmers are currently heading in the same direction of the purple swimmers, although they are much more spread out. I am fairly tempted to leave the program over night, but I don't want to miss whatever species that may exist in between (the game has no fossils). A large number of hybrids have also died out recently. If you guys want, I'll keep you posted.
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