Evolutionary attractor

An evolutionary attractor is a point in an evolutionary space where a selection process will always drive trait values towards that point from the region around it. Because of the importance of evolution through natural selection, often such an evolutionary space will be defined by genetic or phenotypic traits, or possibly both. In this case the selection process will be a form of natural selection.

The existence of an evolutionary attractor in a biological evolutionary space does not always imply that it can be reached from all points in that evolutionary space, nor does it identify what will happen when the evolutionary attractor is reached. While an evolutionary attractor may represent a point in evolutionary space that is resistant to further selection, such as an evolutionarily stable strategy, other possibilities are available.

Because identification of an evolutionary attractor on its own does not describe everything about the evolutionary space in which it lies, this has led to interest in the evolutionary dynamics surrounding evolutionary attractors and in evolutionary spaces in general. (Theoretical biologists and mathematicians working in the area may prefer the terms adaptive dynamics or evolutionary invasion analysis to evolutionary dynamics.) These fields use differential equations which allows a more complete understanding of the dynamics in evolutionary spaces including the existence or otherwise of evolutionary attractors.

Advances in the study of molecular evolution have also led to the identification of evolutionary attractors at a molecular level.

Because biological evolutionary processes have been studied using evolutionary game theory, a technique inspired by game theory originally derived to address economic problems, not only can evolutionary attractors be found in biology but economists studying evolutionary economic models have also identified evolutionary attractors.

Evolution in biology has also inspired evolutionary computation in computer science. Many algorithms in this field use a form of selection inspired by natural selection to generate results through evolutionary algorithms. This is therefore another area in which evolutionary attractors have been identified.