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Jordi Piñero (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) – Information bounds production in replicator systems

Category
Mathematical Biology
Date
@ MALL
Date
@ MALL, 12:00
Location
MALL
Speaker
Jordi Piñero
Affiliation
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Abstract:
We investigate minimal replicator systems that are able to use information in a functional manner. Specifically, we consider a population of autocatalytic replicators in a flow reactor, subject to fluctuating environments. We derive operational bounds on replicators production in terms of information-theoretic quantities, reflecting contributions from environmental uncertainty, side information, and distribution mismatch. We also derive the optimal strategy, expressed as a function of both intrinsic replicator parameters and environmental statistics. We compare and contrast our findings with existing information-theoretic formalisms such as Kelly gambling. The results are illustrated on a model of real-world self-assembled molecular replicators. For this system, we demonstrate the benefit of internal memory in environments with temporal correlations, and we propose a plausible experimental setup for detecting the signature of functional information. We briefly discuss the role that information processing may play in guiding the evolution of prebiotic replicator networks.