Community Organization as an Evolutionary Game

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Several frameworks have been applied to organization of communities under natural selection. Of these, the concept of Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS) provides a powerful framework evaluating the consequences of density-dependent and frequency-dependent selection within and among species. Here, the ESS concept will be applied to the investigation of three evolutionary scenarios relevant to natural selection's influence on properties of communities: 1) predator-prey coevolution, 2) evolution of habitat and diet selection, and 3) evolution in spatially heterogeneous environments. The predator-prey model breaks the traditional dichotomy between the coevolution of competitors and the coevolution of predator-prey by permitting coevolution among species within and between trophic levels. Habitat selection as an evolutionary game considers the prevalent role of habitat and diet partitioning in promoting the evolution and coexistence of competitors. In all three scenarios, the emphasis is on determining evolutionary and ecological properties of communities that promote or inhibit species diversity.