Evolutionarily stable strategies: how common are they?

Abstract

Here we return to the question asked in the Introduction to this book: how common are evolutionarily stable strategies and states? These two concepts were developed in the context of games theory. Games theory was developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944), although the French mathematician Cournot (1838) studied some aspects, further developed by Nash (1950). Its most important contribution to evolutionary biology is the concept of the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). It is central to modern evolutionary ecology, and Dawkins (1976) suggests that it may be "one of the most important advances in evolutionary theory since Darwin". It was introduced into ecology by Maynard Smith and Price (1973), and can be derived from the concept of the Nash Equilibrium (Nash, 1950), according to which none of a number of players in a game can gain by changing her/his strategy unilaterally. Maynard Smith (1982) gave a detailed account of applications of game theory to evolutionary theory, including ESS. However, parts of his book rely heavily on mathematics. Dawkins's (1976) 'The Selfish Gene' contains a discussion of ESS and many examples, clearly explained without any mathematics. A recent detailed review of applications of game theory and ESS to social behavior was given by McNamara and Weissing (2010).