Avida is an auto-adaptive genetic system designed primarily for use as a platform in Digital or Artificial Life research. In lay terms, Avida is a digital world in which simple computer programs mutate and evolve.
Avida allows us to study questions and perform experiments in evolutionalry dynamics and theoretical biology that are intractable in real biological system.
More technically, it is a population of self-reproducing strings with a Turing-complete genetic basis subjected to Poisson-random mutations. The population adapts to the combination of an intrinsic fitness landscape (self-reproduction) and an externally imposed (extrinsic) fitness function provided by the researcher.
By studying this system, one can examine evolutionary adaptation, general traits of living systems (such as self-organization), and other issues pertaining to theoretical or evolutionary biology and dynamic systems. The power of Avida is that it gives us a controllable digital system in which to study the theories of evolutionary biology. Often, we can study elements of evolutionary theory that are difficult or impossible in biological systems.
Avida is a joint project of the Digital Life Laboratory (headed by Chris Adami) at the California Institute of Technology and Richard Lenski’s Microbial Evolution laboratory at Michigan State university. For more info on these groups or our research, please visit the links above.
Currently, Avida has been compiled on most Unix or Linux platforms, Mac OS X and Windows, though the QT graphical user interface has not been ported to Windows. For more information, please visit the versions page. Avida is open-source and anyone is welcome to modify it to his or her needs.
