- Vancouver, Canada
Christoph Hauert
University of British Columbia, Mathematics, Faculty Member
<b>Abstract</b><br/>Understanding the evolution of social behaviours such as altruism and spite is a long-standing problem that has generated thousands of articles and heated debates. Previous theoretical studies showed... more
<b>Abstract</b><br/>Understanding the evolution of social behaviours such as altruism and spite is a long-standing problem that has generated thousands of articles and heated debates. Previous theoretical studies showed that whether altruism and spite evolve may be contingent on seemingly artificial model features, such as which rule is chosen to update the population (e.g., Birth-Death or Death-Birth), and whether the benefits and costs of sociality affect fecundity or survival. Here we unify these features in a single comprehensive framework. We derive a general condition for social behaviour to be favoured over non-social behaviour, which is applicable in a large class of models for structured populations of fixed size. We recover previous results as special cases, and we are able to evaluate the relative effects of benefits and costs of social interactions on fecundity and survival. Our results highlight the crucial importance of identifying the relative scale at which competition occurs.
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Research Interests:
In an evolutionary context, trusted signals or cues provide individuals with the opportunity to manipulate them to their advantage by deceiving others. The deceived can then respond to the deception by either ignoring the signals or cues... more
In an evolutionary context, trusted signals or cues provide individuals with the opportunity to manipulate them to their advantage by deceiving others. The deceived can then respond to the deception by either ignoring the signals or cues or evolving means of deception–detection. If the latter happens, it can result in an arms race between deception and detection. Here, we formally analyse these possibilities in the context of cue-mimicry in prey–predator interactions. We demonstrate that two extrinsic parameters control whether and for how long an arms race continues: the benefits of deception, and the cost of ignoring signals and cues and having an indiscriminate response. As long as the cost of new forms of deception is less than its benefits and the cost of new forms of detection is less than the cost of an indiscriminate response, an arms race results in the perpetual evolution of better forms of detection and deception. When novel forms of deception or detection become too costly to evolve, the population settles on a polymorphic equilibrium involving multiple strategies of deception and honesty, and multiple strategies of detection and trust.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Evolutionary dynamics in finite populations reflects a balance between Darwinian selection and random drift. For a long time population structures were assumed to leave this balance unaffected provided that the mutants and residents have... more
Evolutionary dynamics in finite populations reflects a balance between Darwinian selection and random drift. For a long time population structures were assumed to leave this balance unaffected provided that the mutants and residents have fixed fitness values. This result indeed holds for a certain (large) class of population structures or graphs. However, other structures can tilt the balance to the