title: Mobility-dependent selection of competing strategy associations.
abstract: Standard models of population dynamics focus on the interaction, survival, and extinction of the competing species individually. Real ecological systems, however, are characterized by an abundance of species (or strategies, in the terminology of evolutionary-game theory) that form intricate, complex interaction networks. The description of the ensuing dynamics may be aided by studying associations of certain strategies rather than individual ones. Here we show how such a higher-level description can bear fruitful insight. Motivated from different strains of colicinogenic Escherichia coli bacteria, we investigate a four-strategy system which contains a three-strategy cycle and a neutral alliance of two strategies. We find that the stochastic, spatial model exhibits a mobility-dependent selection of either the three-strategy cycle or of the neutral pair. We analyze this intriguing phenomenon numerically and analytically.
authors.affiliation: CNRS-Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dobrinevski
authors.affiliation: Aalto University, School of Science, Department of Applied Physics, PO Box 11100, 00076 Aalto, Finland.
authors.forename: Mikko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alava
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Reichenbach
authors.affiliation: Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoScience, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstrasse 37, D-80333 München, Germany.
authors.forename: Erwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Frey
mesh_terms: D002450:Cell Communication / Q000235:genetics*; D003163:Competitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology*; D005716:Game Theory; D008954:Models, Biological; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009038:Motion; D013045:Species Specificity