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INSTRUCTIONS

You start with a population of eight morphs, randomly generated. What you have to do is select two individuals (mother and father), by clicking with the mouse on the check-box. Then press . You will see the first generation, issued from the two parents you selected. The children's genome is a combination of the genome of both parents. But all children are different from each other, due to
1) the crossover of the genomes of the two parents,
2) the mutation(s) on their own genome
Then continue: select two new parents, and let them reproduce. From generation to generation, the population evolve under your eyes! You have a demonstration of the identity <reproduction + mutation = evolution>.

If you select only one morph, you can also it. That is, create eight copies of the same individual, differing very slightly, only by the random mutations. But, be careful, in doing so, you impoverish the pool of genes!

After several generations, perhaps you can be disappointed by the decreasing diversity. So, it's time to look for other people. Press the button: the two parents don't change, but you get eight new morphs. Not yet satisfied? Migrate again.

Parameters

• Mutations: you have the choice between none, low, medium or high mutation. Double-click your selection
• Transcription: you act on the way by which the genes are transcripted. Best results are obtained with default value forced order, but try other item, random order.

Genomes

Morphs are artificial creatures, but like natural ones, they have a genome (you know, a set chromosomes). What you see is the phenotype, but the code is the genome. Morphs are little beings, so they have only one little chromosome, composed of only nine genes. These genes are represented by letters. It can be any combination taken from A to M, except the last which can have only the value from I to N. Therefore, there are 4,894,384,326 types of different morphs you can display!

Now, press the button "Show Genome": you see the genome under each individual. The genes, these 9 letters, are only a code. It doesn't matter what they do, each individually. But you can save the genome of any morphs: just copy it with the mouse, and save it in a text file. Later, when you want to display it again, copy it (from the file) and paste it on the father (or the mother), click the checkbox to under the father (or the mother), and press the REPRODUCTION ou CLONE button. The morph you saved appears in the display box, with his descendants in the eight other boxes. By this way, you can constitute a menagerie, like the following:

Here is the Java source

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December 16, 1997, Alain Gogniat