Evolutionary games and population dynamics

进化博弈和种群动态

• 批准号: 355963-2008
• 负责人: Hauert, Christoph
• 金额: $ 1.82万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2010-01-01 至 2011-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=459665
• 关键词: Evolutionary; games; population; dynamics

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.

理解合作的进化是进化生物学面临的核心挑战，最近被选入《科学》杂志发表的 25 个最重要的未解决科学问题之一。合作在自然界中无处不在，从细菌菌落到人类社会。然而，合作是一个难题，而剥削却不是。合作者承担成本并为他人提供利益，而作弊者获得利益却避免成本。因此，达尔文选择应该有利于作弊者，尽管事实上合作者群体比作弊者群体更好。合作问题归结为群体与个人之间的利益冲突。人们花费了大量的理论和实验努力来研究能够解决困境和支持合作演变的机制。该提议基于进化博弈论的数学框架，旨在扩展我们对三种不同机制的理解。首先，研究生态动力学和进化动力学之间的相互作用将增强我们对进化过程的理论理解。在空间环境中，生态学和进化之间的反馈似乎通过启动种群密度的稳定空间异质性来支持合作，并提出了自发栖息地多样化的可能机制。其次，空间延伸的概念很容易推广到任意人口结构，特别是社交网络。社交互动模式不是静态的，而是随着时间而变化。了解社交网络的动态和新兴结构为研究虚拟社区（例如 eBay、维基百科或公共论坛）的形式和功能创造了良好的机会。第三，对惩罚、奖励和声誉在强制或鼓励合作中的作用进行了建模，并将其与人类和动物种群相关。在人类背景下，这为制裁机构的建立以及大多数人类社会建立在惩罚而非社会上更具吸引力的奖励机制上的原因提供了进化的视角。