A note on vigilance behavior and stability against recognizable social parasites

Uzi Motro*, Dan Cohen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Vigilance for predators while feeding seems to present an evolutionary problem: whereas vigilance confers a common benefit to all the group members, its cost is borne only by the vigilant individual itself. Pulliam et al. (1982, J. theor. Biol. 95, 89) and Parker & Hammerstein (1985, Game theory and animal behaviour: In: Evolution: Essays in honour of John Maynard Smith, pp. 73-94.) demonstrated that in cases of diminishing returns with regard to feeding time, an evolutionarily stable vigilance strategy, represented by a positive probability of being vigilant at each time unit, can exist. Thus, if this strategy is the prevailing one in the population, any individual which defects from vigilance duty suffers a reduction in fitness. But what happens if the non-vigilant defector can be recognized as such by the other group members? This work attempts to answer this question and to shed some more light on the evolutionary stability in the vigilance game.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)21-25
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Theoretical Biology
Volume136
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 9 Jan 1989

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