TBI-Preprint 04-02-001
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Titel:
Graph Grammars as Models for
the Evolution of Developmental Pathways
Author(s):
Martin Beck,
Gil Benkö,
Gunther J. Eble,
Christoph Flamm,
Stefan Müller,
and Peter F. Stadler
submitted to:
GWAL, (2004)
Abstract:
The large quantity and ready availability of developmental-genetic data,
coupled with increased rigor and detail in the characterization of
morphological phenotypes, has made the genotype-phenotype map of whole
organisms a central challenge in evolutionary developmental biology. This
in turn necessitates more general modeling strategies that can efficiently
represent different types of biological knowledge and systematically
applied across levels of organization, spatiotemporal scales, and taxonomic
groups. Graph-based models appear useful in this context but have been
remarkably underutilized in biology. Simulation of ontogenetic and
evolutionary change by means of graph-rewriting algorithms has been
explored as a means of providing a coordinate-free approach to form
transformation in time and space. A finite set of rules describing generic
graph transformations is used to encode knowledge about morphogenetic
steps. Their application to skeletal growth in sea urchins effectively
models ontogenesis in terms of topology rather than specific geometry,
suggesting a promising approach to general modeling of developmental
evolution.
Keywords: developmental evolution, graph grammar
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Last modified: 2004-02-05 16:45:55 www