Author Topic: Trying to evolve symbiosis  (Read 7058 times)

Offline Ammeh

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« on: February 18, 2010, 04:43:58 AM »
I've made a fairly simple symbiote that latches onto a veg, shares energy, and causes the veg and itself to produce slime+shell and share them equally. The plant gets most of the waste since it can get rid of it, but otherwise for sharing it's energy it gets a whole load of protection from predators.

I threw these symbiotes in with a load of zero bots in the hope that they'd evolve a symbiotic link, ie: zerobots evolved to hunt things that weren't symbiotes, symbiote made zerobot better at hunting. After about 5 failed sims though, i just can't figure out how to trigger an evolutionary pressure that forces the symbiosis  

Any ideas?

Offline Houshalter

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2010, 06:55:57 AM »
Maybe two different bots that are good at two different things that search for a bot from the other species then tie together and act as a single bot. I think this is how multicellular organisms evolved in real life...

Offline Numsgil

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2010, 12:37:29 PM »
It's hard.  It's sort of a mystery of modern evolutionary biology how symbiosis evolves (we have some good theories but they aren't really backed up by any observational or experimental data).

The best bet I think is to have several separate sims and mix them from time to time.  You don't need to cooperate if you aren't competing.

Offline Houshalter

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2010, 03:53:36 PM »
Quote
we have some good theories but they aren't really backed up by any observational or experimental data
If theres no data or expirements then their not theories, just hypothesises.  

Offline Numsgil

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2010, 04:09:18 PM »
There's significant circumstantial evidence looking at the fossil record.  In the soft sciences, that's often all the data you get.

Offline Ammeh

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2010, 06:05:15 PM »
Well, I had to force it a bit, but I may have sort of maybe almost got it

Keep an eye out for MultiSimBiot-unfinished on IM. It should latch onto plants, branch out, catch other bots and make them part of the network. Tested it with HSLiteSammeh(the original) and it worked fairly well. I don't know if it's symbiosis in it's truest sense, but the captured bot gets a share of the energy of the whole network, as well as a free load of shell.

EDIT: Scratch that. HSLS is not playing nice
« Last Edit: February 18, 2010, 06:14:37 PM by Sammeh »

Offline Numsgil

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2010, 06:34:10 PM »
That's always the danger with cooperation.  All it takes is once cheater and the system is ruined.  That's why I think you'll find more success if you run separate sims and mix them occassionally.  Each sim is essentially competing against the other ones.  So cheaters prosper only in the local sim, then die out when they're invaded from another sim.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2010, 06:38:31 PM by Numsgil »

Offline Houshalter

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2010, 07:02:48 PM »
Well if they're truly interdendent on each other then there will be strong selection pressures against cheaters. My idea is to have one bot that can't reproduce on its own and another that can't feed on its own. The second will shoot memory shots to make it reproduce (or do it through ties), as well as provide other functions so it doesn't become useless if the other learns how to reproduce. The other functions could be like waste management, body/energy management (done through ties), making venom shell, poison, etc...

By the way, every so often a weird bot pops up in my sim and gradually dies but never becomes extinct. Theres always one or two struggling in an enviroment built against them. Some of these are your bots by the way...

Offline Ammeh

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2010, 07:15:31 PM »
Oh? What species are they?

Offline Houshalter

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« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2010, 07:39:34 PM »
Well, I was wrong, they all died execept for alga_minimalis, AlgaHairy3, Tibbles first Bot, andat one time a fruit fly was living on its own. I was also visited by your multiSimbiot and your evolved HSLS but both died after a while. Then there was "First", Sentinel 3, and PlantSimbiot.

Anyways is anyone else connected. Everytime I look at it it says im the only one on, but then I get swarmed with nonNative species.

Offline Ammeh

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« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2010, 07:50:32 PM »
I've been visited by bots from TibbleTest and Newbie. The PlantSimbiot was the one I was trying to evolve symbiosis with. Fruit flies are just plain annoying   you can't get rid of them!  

Offline Houshalter

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2010, 08:12:21 PM »
Hey, is my alga_mutatable doing well out there?

Offline Commander Tibbles

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2010, 12:57:26 AM »
I sometimes connect with IM. luckily fruitflys always die on my sims, ya 'first' is my bot rather crude, didn't mean to release him. I have not seen alga mutable.
though on topic, it seems like you will need to control the evolution, which is going to be tricky.

Offline Houshalter

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Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2010, 09:30:04 AM »
Sammehs HSLS went extinct on my sim when I wasn't around so the costx dropped to about 30 which was enough for you first to invade. Its ok though, I welcome competition between different bots. Just please try to keep super vegs or viruses to yourself.

Offline SlyStalker

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Re: Trying to evolve symbiosis
« Reply #14 on: March 06, 2013, 02:56:56 AM »
maybe you should make the 'zerobots' altruistic and make them latch onto each other to share stuff then over time that might evolve to attaching onto other species too?
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.