Genetic analysis of model merges (multi-parent reproduction)

Develop methods to conduct a genetic analysis of model merges in the Hugging Face ecosystem, treating merges as a form of sexual reproduction with two or more parents and analyzing trait inheritance and mutation in non-tree structures where nodes may have multiple parents.

Background

The paper analyzes genetic similarity and trait diffusion across fine-tuning family trees on Hugging Face, deliberately omitting merges to preserve tree structures analogous to asexual reproduction. In this setting, each model has at most one parent, simplifying the measurement of inheritance and mutation over generations.

The authors note that merges introduce multiple-parent relationships, creating non-tree directed acyclic graphs and more complex local family structures. Because merges are rarer and structurally complex, they leave their genetic analysis as an open direction for future work.