GAME THEORY Flashcards
What is hamiltons theory of inclusive fitness?
- Animals are expected to be more helpful to their close relatives than to more distant relatives.
Three core values of Hamilton’s rule:
- c - ‘cost to actor of behaviour
- b - ‘benefit’ to recipient of social behaviour
- r - genetic relatedness between actor and recipien
Hamilton’s rule: Behaviour favoured
c < br
What does hamiltons rule state?
- If the cost to actor is less than the benefit to recipient x genetic relatedness then the social behaviour will be adaptive and thus evolve
- c < br
Examples of social actions and their costs and benefits?
- Give food to recipient : c is positive : b is positive
- Steal food from recipient : c is negative : b is negative
- Swim past recipient : c is zero : b is zero
When does altruism occur?
If there is a cost to actor (c)
What is r if recipients are siblings?
r - genetic relatedness between actor and recipient
r = 0.5%
What is r between nephew and uncle?
r - genetic relatedness between actor and recipient
r = 0.25%
What is r between cousins?
r - genetic relatedness between actor and recipient
r = 0.125%
Tiger salamanders are most likely to develop into cannibals if they are in groups containing:
- Many conspecifics
- Variation in larval size
- Mostly unrelated individuals
Some species can choose/ manipulate what sex offspring they produce, why does it matter what other females in the groups are producing?
If sex ratio in the population is female biassed a female would be better off producing male offspring as they will have greater mating probability and higher reproductive output (1 male can mate with more than female if there are more females to males, thus producing more grand offspring and spreading the original females genes).
Who applied pairwise contests and game theory to animal behaviour?
John Maynard Smith
How do male side-blotched lizards play ‘rock-paper-scissors’ in the real world?
Cycle between dominance of different mating strategies
