Mechanisms affecting the evolution of evolvability

This paper describes a series of simulation experiments based on a model by John W. Pepper [1] on two mechanisms, mutation rate and culling, and their effect on evolvability. The findings suggest that while culling may positively affect the performance of the population, increased culling negatively affects the evolution of the evolvability of the lineage. Similarly, decreasing the mutation rate positively affects performance of the population whereas it negatively affects aspects of evolvability. It suggests that mechanisms affecting evolvability are similar to mechanisms affecting evolution in complex spaces.