[Push] Ecology?

[Rud Merriam]

While I'm working on my C++ impelementation I have an idea that won't let
go. How do you create and evolve an ecology?

I'm not sure what I mean by this except by an analogy with life having
vegetation, herbivores, predators, etc. These all evolved into
interdependence. Could this be done by starting with a population and
encouraging subsets of the population with different fitness functions?
Perhaps the fitness includes transfer of information among the subsets, i.e.
species.

More generally maybe this is producers and consumers of information? Maybe
the rod balancing problem could serve as an example? The position sensors
being producers and the motion controllers being consumers?

How do you encourage speciation without predeterming what the species must
do? After all maybe some new division of activity will evolve in the
experiment.

Rud Merriam
K5RUD