Studying Evolution with Digital Organisms

Overview

Students observe natural selection in action and investigate the underlying mechanism, including random mutation and differential fitness based on environmental characteristics. They do this through use of the free AVIDA-ED digital evolution software application.

Engineering Connection

Computer scientists and engineers work together to create software and hardware to model complex systems and create new technologies. The digital evolution software, Avida, was created by a group of computer scientists and software engineers interested in the experimental study of digital organisms in order to better understand how biological natural selection works and then to apply that knowledge to solving computational problems. Evolutionary computation methods can be applied to solve a wide range of engineering design problems.