Darwinbots Forum

General => Biology => Topic started by: Numsgil on November 05, 2005, 04:22:19 PM

Title: Phylogenic Trees for Sexual Critters
Post by: Numsgil on November 05, 2005, 04:22:19 PM

I was thinking of implementing a tree like data structure to construct phylogenic trees you could walk through and examine how your bots are mutating and different dead end mutations that developed, etc.

It's all very clean until you get into sexual reproduction.  Then the whole thing becomes really, really messy.

Really.

So how do actual geneticists handle this sort of complication?

Title: Phylogenic Trees for Sexual Critters
Post by: shvarz on November 05, 2005, 09:58:33 PM

Usually there is no need to build family trees for large populations.  It's just not practical and very difficult to get useful information out.  When genealogy trees are constructed, then basically you suck it up and build a complicated tree...  I can find out special symbols that geneologists use, if you need them (like circle-female, square=male and so on).

Title: Phylogenic Trees for Sexual Critters
Post by: Numsgil on November 05, 2005, 10:49:20 PM

Na, I've done some geneology work before, so I know the symbols and stuff for that.

Title: Phylogenic Trees for Sexual Critters
Post by: ollj on December 22, 2005, 01:29:02 PM

There is a really simple solution:
Only log the females of the population.
males are just like "free radicals".

The fact that it gets really messy is the one evolutionary advantage of sexual reproduction.

Ever tried messenger-RNA (mRNA)?
Its similar to viruses, but send trough ties to similar organisms for good.