About the Authors

Douglas Blackiston

Contributed equally to this work with: Douglas Blackiston, Hannah Dromiack, Caitlin Grasso

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Resources, Visualization, Writing – original draft

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Institute for Computationally-Designed Organisms, UVM, Burlington, Vermont and Tufts, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America

Hannah Dromiack

Contributed equally to this work with: Douglas Blackiston, Hannah Dromiack, Caitlin Grasso

Roles Data curation, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America

Caitlin Grasso

Contributed equally to this work with: Douglas Blackiston, Hannah Dromiack, Caitlin Grasso

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America

Thomas F Varley

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Affiliations Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America, Department of Complex Systems and Data Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America, School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America

Douglas G Moore

Roles Software

Affiliations BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, Alpha 39 Research, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America

Krishna Kannan Srinivasan

Roles Software

Affiliations Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America, Department of Complex Systems and Data Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America

Olaf Sporns

Roles Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America

Joshua Bongard

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Institute for Computationally-Designed Organisms, UVM, Burlington, Vermont and Tufts, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America

Michael Levin

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Institute for Computationally-Designed Organisms, UVM, Burlington, Vermont and Tufts, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America

Sara I Walker

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

sara.i.walker@asu.edu

Affiliations BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.