Evolutionary Game Theory in Growing Populations

Condensed Matter journal club

Evolutionary Game Theory in Growing Populations

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 3rd December 2010
  • Speaker: Dominic Russell (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Abstract

Existing theoretical models of evolution focus on the relative fitness advantages of different mutants in a population while the dynamic behavior of the population size is mostly left unconsidered. We present here a generic stochastic model which combines the growth dynamics of the population and its internal evolution. Our model thereby accounts for the fact that both evolutionary and growth dynamics are based on individual reproduction events and hence are highly coupled and stochastic in nature. We exemplify our approach by studying the dilemma of cooperation in growing populations and show that genuinely stochastic events can ease the dilemma by leading to a transient but robust increase in cooperation.
PRL 105 178101 (2010)

Authors

Anna Melbinger, Jonas Cremer, and Erwin Frey

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