Abstract. Wagner (1996) and Siegal and Bergman (2002) have studied a simple model of the evolution of a network of N genes, in order to explain the observed phenomenon that systems evolve to be robust. These authors primarily considered the case N=10 and used simulations to reach their conclusions. Here we investigate this model in more detail, considering N =2, 4, 7, 10 and supplementing the simulations with mathematical arguments. Our results show that the qualitative observation that systems evolve to be robust, is itself robust, since it does not depend on the details on the model. In simple terms, robust systems have more offspring, so the evolution of robustness is merely selection for increased fecundity.
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Theoretical Population Biology 71 (2007), 121-130