Using digital organisms to investigate the effect of whole genome duplication in (artificial) evolution

The potential role of whole genome duplication (WGD) in evolution is controversial. Whereas some view WGD mainly as detrimental and an evolutionary dead end, there is growing evidence that the long-term establishment of polyploidy might be linked to environmental change, stressful conditions, or periods of extinction. However, despite much research, the mechanistic underpinnings of why and how polyploids might be able to outcompete non-polyploids at times of environmental upheaval remain indefinable. Here, we improved our recently developed bio-inspired framework, combining an artificial genome with an agent-based system, to form a population of so-called Digital Organisms (DOs), to examine the impact of WGD on evolution under different environmental scenarios mimicking extinction events of varying strength and frequency. We found that, under stable environments, DOs with non-duplicated genomes formed the majority, if not all, of the population, whereas the numbers of DOs with duplicated genomes increased under dramatically challenging environments. After tracking the evolutionary trajectories of individual artificial genomes in terms of sequence and encoded gene regulatory networks (GRNs), we propose that increased complexity, modularity, and redundancy of duplicated GRNs might provide DOs with increased adaptive potential under extinction events, while ensuring mutational robustness of the whole GRN. Our results confirm the usefulness of our computational simulation in studying the role of WGD in evolution and adaptation, helping to overcome the traditional limitations of evolution experiments with model organisms, and provide some additional insights into how genome duplication might help organisms to compete for novel niches and survive ecological turmoil.