Modeling the fitness of plant morphologies across three levels of complexity

Linking together disparate biological models has the potential to provide insights that cannot be gained from studying the models in isolation. Computational modeling provides the means to integrate and test theories that span different temporal and spatial scales, and thus provides an ideal platform for forging this link. This paper describes a model that combines three key levels of biological theory. A computational model of gene regulation is integrated with a model of early land plant morphology, and placed in an evolutionary environment of competing fitness pressures. Simulation results indicate that each of these sub-models constrain possible phenotypic fitness. This work provides a methodological scaffold upon which increasingly complex models at each level of genotype, phenotype and environment can be built.