Shorelark Expanded is a browser-based evolution simulator built in Rust and WebAssembly. This project aims to build on an existing evolution simulation and modifies and adds to the selection pressures in a variety of different ways to visualize the impact on the population. Selection pressures can be food constraints, hunger constraints, or a predatorial species.
Aggregate trends from 500 runs × 300 generations, including fitness trajectories, distribution bands, and prey-predator tradeoffs.
- Built feed-forward neural-network control and genetic algorithm updates in Rust, integrated with a JavaScript UI for real-time training controls and visual debugging.
- Implemented predator behavior and reproduction as a separate evolving population, enabling predator-prey co-evolution under competing selection pressures.
- Exposed 7 per-generation metrics in the live stats panel (generation, prey min/max/avg/deaths, predator min/max/avg).
- Built a reproducible batch experiment pipeline (e.g., 500 runs × 300 generations), logging per-generation metrics and visualizing convergence, fitness distributions, and prey-predator co-evolution phase plots.
- Measured extinction behavior across runs; 122/500 runs (24.4%) ended in complete prey die-out under current settings.