title: Rules for biologically inspired adaptive network design.
abstract: Transport networks are ubiquitous in both social and biological systems. Robust network performance involves a complex trade-off involving cost, transport efficiency, and fault tolerance. Biological networks have been honed by many cycles of evolutionary selection pressure and are likely to yield reasonable solutions to such combinatorial optimization problems. Furthermore, they develop without centralized control and may represent a readily scalable solution for growing networks in general. We show that the slime mold Physarum polycephalum forms networks with comparable efficiency, fault tolerance, and cost to those of real-world infrastructure networks--in this case, the Tokyo rail system. The core mechanisms needed for adaptive network formation can be captured in a biologically inspired mathematical model that may be useful to guide network construction in other domains.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tero
authors.forename: Seiji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takagi
authors.forename: Tetsu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saigusa
authors.forename: Kentaro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: Dan P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Bebber
authors.forename: Mark D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Fricker
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yumiki
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Toshiyuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakagaki
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005502:Food; D008954:Models, Biological; D016839:Physarum polycephalum / Q000166:cytology* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D011890:Railroads; D049490:Systems Biology; D014041:Tokyo