ABSTRACT
The study of functional differentiation involves understanding the processes whereby a population of individuals, whether humans or cells, become specialized in the behaviors which they express. Research into functional differentiation, across several levels, has suggested that this specialization occurs as a result of constraints on the flow of resources which pass through the individual from the environment (including other agents). These constraints are: 1) the maximum amount of resource that an individual can accept from outside, 2) the maximum amount of resource that an individual can give back to the population or other environment, and 3) the maximum amount of contacts that an individual can hold with such environment. This issue was explored through the Compatibility Model and Functional Differentiation model (FD-model).
