Chapter 14 - Mult-objective optimality in biology Flashcards
What is a evolutionary trade off?
No animal can do everything - there is something that is optimal for a niche but you give up some other attribute.
What is a trait space?
every axis represents a given trait. E.g. beak length. This trait space makes up the fitness landscape - some combination of feature values are optimal.
What is performance?
A given phenotype can perform differently at different tasks. Performance of each task gives an image of how well the phenotype is at that. Fitness is function of all the perfomances.
What is the pareto front?
The amount of that cannot get better at all performances at the same time.
How can tasks be found from the shape space?
A task in the shape space has a particular performance function that defines what traits are good for it. Usually trait combinations are present along the lines connecting the optimums of the performance functions.
What is an archetype?
The peak of an performance function in trait space.
Why are all phenotypes on lines between archetypes?
Because being on the line between points optimizes distance from archetypes. This is the Pareto front in the trait space not the performance space.
