Preservation of genetic redundancy in the existence of developmental error and fitness assignment error

Conservation of functionally identical copies of the same gene throughout the generations is not an easy task. In this study, based on the biological evidence that suggests the existence of the developmental error as one of the ways to preserve redundancy, our goal is to investigate the impact of developmental error on a simple problem using a genetic algorithm(GA). Developmental errors exist during the biological development of an individual. The biological models with developmental errors have demonstrated that it is possible to maintain redundant copies in the existence of proper mutation rates and developmental error rates. Our preliminary results with a simple problem demonstrates that using developmental error helps preserving the redundant copies and maintaining a better solution quality for the redundant copies of a gene. Besides the developmental error, we propose a new error type that comes into play during the fitness assignment and enhances the quality of the solutions when used together with developmental error.