Emergence and analysis of complex food webs in an individual-based artificial ecology

Abstract

Food webs are complex networks of trophic interactions in ecological communities that are crucial in creating and maintaining biodiversity, and are prominent examples of biological complexity. In this paper, we present an individual-based model of an artificial ecology demonstrating the emergence of complex food webs through the evolution of rich phenotypes. Individuals are simple structures that map several traits in a nonlinear fashion. Interaction and evolution of these structures leads to the self-assembly of food webs in complex ecological communities. Ecological and network analysis of the evolved artificial ecologies shows remarkable similarities in various patterns known from natural ecological communities.