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Cited by 466

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 40 of the 40 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The evolutionary origins of modularity

Open access
Clune, Jeff, Mouret, Jean-Baptiste, Lipson, Hod·2013·Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Abstract

A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks—their organization as functional, sparsely connected subunits—but there is no consensus regarding why modularity itself evolved. Although most hypotheses assume indirect selection for evolvability, here we demonstrate that the ubiquitous, direct selection pressure to reduce the cost of connections between network nodes causes the emergence of modular networks. Computational evolution experiments with selection pressures to maximize network performance and minimize connection costs yield networks that are significantly more modular and more evolvable than control experiments that only select for performance. These results will catalyse research in numerous disciplines, such as neuroscience and genetics, and enhance our ability to harness evolution for engineering purposes.

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Metadata

Authors
Clune, J., Mouret, J.-B., & Lipson, H.
Venue
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Published
2013-03-22
Volume
280
Issue
1755
Pages
20122863-20122863
ISSN
  • 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
  • 0962-8452
  • 1471-2954
OpenAlex
W2097351860
Cited by
466
References
40
FWCI
25.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The evolutionary origins of modularity. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1098/rspb.2012.2863
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Clune, J., Mouret, J.-B., & Lipson, H. (2013). The evolutionary origins of modularity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2863

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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