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Evolutionary Game Theory

As even Darwin knew, his theory of evolution had some missing explanations. One of the most difficult behaviors to explain via competition is altruism. Maynard Smith was the first researcher to successfully apply principles of game theory to interspecies behavior. An important first step for him was realizing that the strategies needn’t be purely rational, but only needed to enable the animal to survive. A good strategy would also compete favorably against other strategies amongst the same species so it could eventually become shared amongst all members of the species. What’s unique about evolutionary game theory (EGT) is that no player can choose their strategy, they are born with genes that control their strategy.

An interesting example comes from the ground squirrel. In this species, the females live together in colonies while the males roam amongst colonies. As a result, females are very genetically similar while the males have similarities. When a predator attacks a ground squirrel colony, a female will sound a loud warning call, even though she is endangering herself (letting the predator easily locate her). However, male ground squirrels do not sound such an alarm. It can be shown via the principles of ETG that because of their close relationships, it’s worth a female endangering herself to help save other members of the colony while it isn’t for males.

This topic is related to the game theory taught in class. While it is at a much higher level and I haven’t included any of the explicit diagrams showing payoffs, the same principals are at work. ETG still deals with the possible payoffs and costs associated with specific choices in an animal’s interactions. It can be used to help explain some aspects of animal’s ritualized behavior and submission to more dangerous creatures.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory#cite_note-8

Dugatkin, Alan “Principles of Animal Behavior” 2004, WW Norton& Co., p. 255-260,

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