Evolutionary games and population dynamics

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Understanding the evolution of cooperation represents a core challenge to evolutionary biology and was recently selected among the 25 most important unresolved scientific questions published in Science. Cooperation is ubiquitous in nature, ranging from bacterial colonies to human societies. However, cooperation is a conundrum, whereas exploitation is not. Cooperators incur costs and provide benefits to others, whereas cheaters reap the benefits but avoid the costs. Hence, Darwinian selection should favour cheaters, despite the fact that groups of cooperators are better off than groups of cheaters. The problem of cooperation reduces to a conflict of interest between the group and the individual. Much theoretical and experimental effort has been expended to investigate mechanisms capable of resolving the dilemma and supporting the evolution of cooperation. Based on the mathematical framework of evolutionary game theory, this proposal aims at extending our understanding of three distinct mechanisms. First, investigating the interplay between ecological and evolutionary dynamics will enhance our theoretical understanding of evolutionary processes. In spatial settings, the feedback between ecology and evolution appears to support cooperation by initiating stable spatial heterogeneity in population densities and suggests a possible mechanism for spontaneous habitat diversification. Second, the concept of spatial extension is readily generalized to arbitrary population structures and, in particular, to social networks. Social interaction patterns are not static but change over time. Understanding the dynamics and the emerging structures of social networks creates promising opportunities to study form and function, for example, of virtual communities, such as eBay, Wikipedia or public forums. Third, the role of punishment, reward and reputation in enforcing or encouraging cooperation is modeled and related to human and animal populations. In a human context, this provides an evolutionary perspective on the establishment of sanctioning institutions as well as on the reasons for building most human societies on punishment instead of on socially more appealing rewarding mechanisms.