Comparing the evolution of canalyzing and threshold networks

We study the influence of the type of update functions on the evolution of Boolean networks under selection for dynamical robustness. The chosen types of functions are canalyzing functions and threshold functions. Starting from a random initial network, we evolve the network by an adaptive walk. During the first time period, where the networks evolve to the plateau of 100 percent fitness, we find that both type of update functions give the same behavior, albeit for different network sizes and connectedness. However, on the long run, as the networks continue to evolve on the fitness plateau, the different types of update functions give rise to different network structure, due to their different mutational robustness. When both types of update functions occur together, none of them is preferred under long-term evolution. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011