ALife approach to eco-evo-devo using evolution of virtual creatures

Evolutionary developmental biology, evo-devo, emerged to integrate evolution and development in the 1980s, in which evolution is conceptualized as heritable changes in development. Recently, the field is moving to a new synthesis: ecological evolutionary developmental biology, eco-evo-devo. We believe that artificial life (ALife) approach will provide new insights into the field, and also contribute to the field of robotics through the emergence perspective and the constructive methodology. This paper explores the potential of such an artificial life approach based on the evolution of virtual creatures by presenting our ongoing studies with three models: (1) metamorphosis model, (2) exaptation model and (3) Prey-predator model.