Cooperation in organisms, whether bacteria or primates, has been a difficulty for evolutionary theory since Darwin. On the assumption that interactions between pairs of individuals occur on a probabilistic basis, a model is developed based on the concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy in the context of the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Deductions from the model, and the results of a computer tournament show how cooperation based on reciprocity can get started in an asocial world, can thrive while interacting with a wide range of other strategies, and can resist invasion once fully established. Potential applications include specific aspects of territoriality, mating, and disease.

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The Evolution of Cooperation

Cooperation is needed for evolution to construct new levels of organization. Genomes, cells, multicellular organisms, social insects, and human society are all based on cooperation. Cooperation means that selfish replicators forgo some of their reproductive potential to help one another. But natural selection implies competition and therefore opposes cooperation unless a specific mechanism is at work. Here I discuss five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection. For each mechanism, a simple rule is derived that specifies whether natural selection can lead to cooperation.

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Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation

http://osenberglab.ecology.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Charnov-1976-TPB.pdf

Optimal foraging, the marginal value theorem.

Every form of behavior is shaped by trial and error. Such stepwise adaptation can occur through individual learning or through natural selection, the basis of evolution. Since the work of Maynard Smith and others, it has been realized how game theory can model this process. Evolutionary game theory replaces the static solutions of classical game theory by a dynamical approach centered not on the concept of rational players but on the population dynamics of behavioral programs. In this book the authors investigate the nonlinear dynamics of the self-regulation of social and economic behavior, and of the closely related interactions among species in ecological communities. Replicator equations describe how successful strategies spread and thereby create new conditions that can alter the basis of their success, i.e., to enable us to understand the strategic and genetic foundations of the endless chronicle of invasions and extinctions that punctuate evolution. In short, evolutionary game theory describes when to escalate a conflict, how to elicit cooperation, why to expect a balance of the sexes, and how to understand natural selection in mathematical terms.

 Comprehensive treatment of ecological and game theoretic dynamics
 Invasion dynamics and permanence as key concepts
 Explanation in terms of games of things like competition between species

/pdf/evolutionary-games-and-population-dynamics-pax1uk4ywa.pdf

Evolutionary games and population dynamics

Sperm competition and its evolutionary consequences in the insects

Assessment strategy and the evolution of fighting behaviour.

The logic of asymmetric contests

Although positive reciprocity (reciprocal altruism) has been a focus of interest in evolutionary biology, negative reciprocity (retaliatory infliction of fitness reduction) has been largely ignored. In social animals, retaliatory aggression is common, individuals often punish other group members that infringe their interests, and punishment can cause subordinates to desist from behaviour likely to reduce the fitness of dominant animals. Punishing strategies are used to establish and maintain dominance relationships, to discourage parasites and cheats, to discipline offspring or prospective sexual partners and to maintain cooperative behaviour.

Punishment in animal societies.

Optimization models help us to test our insight into the biological constraints that influence the outcome of evolution. They serve to improve our understanding about adaptations, rather than to demonstrate that natural selection produces optimal solutions.

Geoff A. Parker

Papers

Sperm competition and its evolutionary consequences in the insects

Assessment strategy and the evolution of fighting behaviour.

The logic of asymmetric contests

Punishment in animal societies.

Optimality theory in evolutionary biology