On the Evolution of Pure Winner and Lose Effects: A Game-theoretic Model

摘要

The persistence of linear dominance hierarchies is often attributed to higher prob- abilities of a win after a win or a loss after a loss in agonistic interactions, yet there has been no theory on the evolution of such prior-experience effects. Here an analytic model, based on the idea that contests are determined by subjective perceptions of resource-holding potential (RHP) which animals may revise in the light of experience, demonstrates that winner and loser effects can evolve through round-robin competition among triads of animals drawn randomly from their pop- ulation, and that the probability of a hierarchy increases with the strength of the combined effect.