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Abstract:
Transport networks play a key role across four realms of eukaryotic life: slime molds, fungi, plants, and animals.
In addition to the developmental algorithms that build them, many also employ adaptive strategies to respond
to stimuli, damage, and other environmental changes. We model these adapting network architectures using a
generic dynamical system on weighted graphs and find in simulation that these networks ultimately develop a
hierarchical organization of the final weighted architecture accompanied by the formation of a system-spanning
backbone. In addition, we find that the long term equilibration dynamics exhibit behavior reminiscent of glassy
systems characterized by long periods of slow changes punctuated by bursts of reorganization events.
