期刊
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
卷 108, 期 50, 页码 19985-19989出版社
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1115960108
关键词
network evolution; evolvability; robustness; community assembly; food webs
资金
- European Community
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [HR0011-09-1-055]
Evolution behaves like a tinkerer (Francois Jacob, Science, 1977). Software systems provide a singular opportunity to understand biological processes using concepts from network theory. The Debian GNU/Linux operating system allows us to explore the evolution of a complex network in a unique way. The modular design detected during its growth is based on the reuse of existing code in order to minimize costs during programming. The increase of modularity experienced by the system over time has not counterbalanced the increase in incompatibilities between software packages within modules. This negative effect is far from being a failure of design. A random process of package installation shows that the higher the modularity, the larger the fraction of packages working properly in a local computer. The decrease in the relative number of conflicts between packages from different modules avoids a failure in the functionality of one package spreading throughout the entire system. Some potential analogies with the evolutionary and ecological processes determining the structure of ecological networks of interacting species are discussed.
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