GenePool: Exploring the interaction between natural selection and sexual selection

Abstract

GenePool is an artificial life simulation designed to bring some basic principles of evolution to light in an entertaining and instructive way. Most significant is the aspect of sexual selection - where mate choice is a factor in the evolution of morphology and motor control in physically based animated organisms. We see in the examples of deer antlers, peacock tails, and fish coloration a magnificent world of variation that makes the study of animals fascinating for us - aesthetically-driven humans that we are. But aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder. And sometimes aesthetics can run counter to the rules of basic survival. GenePool was designed to explore this topic. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005.