Spatial Autocatalytic Dynamics: An Approach to Modeling Prebiotic Evolution

This paper addresses the origin of robust and evolvable metabolic functions, and the conditions under which it took place. We propose that spatial considerations, traditionally ignored, are essential to answering these important questions in prebiotic evolution. Our probabilistic cellular automaton model, based on work on autocatalytic metabolisms by Eigen, Kauffman, and others, has biologically interesting dynamical behavior that is missed if spatial extension is ignored.