Adapted Heuristics and Architecture: towards an understanding of personalities and phenotypic diversity

The research project «Adapted heuristics and architecture: towards an understanding of personalities and phenotypic diversity» has studieed how animals make choices, especially how hormonal systems, emotions, and brain processes help individuals make decisions which lead to growth, survival, and in the long run to offspring. The goal has been to understand how decision architectures emerged and can evolve by natural selection. The research has focused on cognitive and hormonal aspects of this architecture.

Prosjektet har utviklet en verbal, grafisk og matematisk modell for hvordan dyr foretar beslutninger. Dette har vitenskapelig verdi utover prosjektet og vil videreføres i andre prosjekter. Denne modellen har også klar nytteverdi for forståelse av dyrevelferd (hos normale og friske dyr). Modellen inngår i en søknad om Senter for forskningsdrevet innovasjon, rettet mot havbruksnæringen. Prosjektet har også utviklet en modell for hvordan hormonsystemet kan knyttes sammen med modeller for atferd og fysiologi. Dette vil i det videre arbeidet i forskningsgruppen koples med modellen for beslutninger.

The classical methods of evolutionary ecology, optimization and games, assume as a simplification that organisms are able to trade-off conflicting demands and optimize their behavior. We have, however, shown that two types of increased realism may change this picture. One of them is to replace the assumption of perfect behavior with heuristics: rules for fast and quite likely good decisions. The other is explicit architecture: a description of the major pathways in the organism from genes and perceptions to behavior. We have seen in simulation models that evolution in populations of individuals with adapted heuristics and architecture yield populations with higher evolutionary robustness and evolvability and with personality variation among individuals. We think that our ideas about architecture has the potential to change how we think about behavior, ecology and evolution. These pilot findings will therefore be further investigated in this study, by employing different organisms and environments from those we have used so far. We will use rich individual-based models in classical evolutionary ecology scenarios, such as patch choice and patch leaving rules and producer-scrounger games. The model will be tested against the behavior of fox squirrels in Berkeley. The project draws on expertise in theoretical ecology, and computer science in Bergen, as well as leading international experts in animal behavior (Bristol and Santa Cruz) and animal psychology (Berkeley).