Evolutionary dynamics of fearfulness and boldness.
A negative relationship between reproductive effort and survival is consistent with life-history. Evolutionary dynamics and evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) for the trade-off between survival and reproduction are investigated using a simple model with two phenotypes, fearfulness and boldness. The dynamical stability of the pure strategy model and analysis of ESS conditions reveal that: (i) the simple coexistence of fearfulness and boldness is impossible; (ii) a small population size is favorable to fearfulness, but a large population size is favorable to boldness, i.e., neither fearfulness, nor boldness is always favored by natural selection; and (iii) the dynamics of population density is crucial for a proper understanding of the strategy dynamics.
Ji
Ting
T
Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China.
Zhang
Boyu
B
Sun
Yuehua
Y
Tao
Yi
Y
D000374:Aggression; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005239:Fear; D005716:Game Theory; D008957:Models, Genetic; D011156:Population Density; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D012098:Reproduction / Q000235:genetics