Evgeny Ivanko, Aleksey Belousov

BioSystems
Volume 261, March 2026, 105711

We study the development of model biotic communities in which species play the role of environment for each other. Each experiment starts with the appearance of a single species in an abiotic environment. The properties of this initial species (together with the size of the abiotic environment) are the independent parameters of the experiment. In the following phase of macroevolutionary “unwrapping” each existing species can change its abundance (according to its current fitness) and give rise to new species (as a result of mutation). During this process, the destiny of the species becomes increasingly determined by the influence of other species rather than by the abiotic environment. With the mechanics described, artificial biotic communities experience adaptive radiation from single species to complex networks that coevolve in adaptive landscapes of their own making.
Using a number of metrics, we track the evolution of biotic communities in the hope of discovering interesting properties and patterns. We have tried to provide plausible explanations for the experiment results wherever possible. However, the main purpose of this work is not to answer questions, but rather to raise new ones, to provoke thoughts and analogies among readers with different backgrounds.

Read the full article at: www.sciencedirect.com

Zyri Bajrami
Matter, energy, and information, on the one hand, and the interplay between natural selection and self-organization, on the other, have given rise to modules, which constitute the fundamental units of interaction, organization, and function, as well as the primary targets of natural selection throughout chemical, biological, and cultural evolution. Based on the forms of structural information that enable their emergence, modules can be classified into huit types: (a) chemical modules (l) genetic and epigenetic modules, (c) cell, (d) neural, (f) mental modules, (g) moduloma (m) and affordance modules (n). Through interactions among modules and between modules and their environment, semantic (meaningful) modular information emerges. It is this semantic information that enables modules to acquire and maintain stability as both physical and abstract entities. The emergence and persistence of both material and immaterial (abstract) modules occur only at a specific point in time, when structural information is matched with the corresponding energy. This relationship is described by the law of modular stability. Modules acquire and preserve stability when the structural information responsible for establishing the relationships among the elements of their structure, considered as systems, corresponds to the energy required to maintain those relationships, while semantic modular information reaches its maximum value. One of the principal implications of this law is that the creative role of natural selection and modular stability is expressed primarily during the first stage of module formation, when the module is established as a replicator, rather than during the second stage, when it functions as an interactor and its fitness is determined.

Read the full article at: www.preprints.org