Why are models based on optimality often used to explain adaptation? What does the use of games theory add? Optimality models and game theory are two fairly interlinked ideas, each of which, or a combination of the two, may be used to explain why a species has adapted to perform the behaviours observed in the wild. An optimality model aims to discover which phenotype/behaviour from a set of these, known as strategies, is optimal in terms of individual fitness of an organism (Rice, 2012). In order to construct an optimality model, first a question must be posed – for example, why do some female spiders consume their mate after copulation? An assumption of the model is that the answer to the question will have an adaptive reasoning behind it. …show more content…
In actuality, it is highly unlikely that these assumed payoffs truly reflect the costs or benefits reaped by the organism in question. When the payoff for each strategy has been decided, an optimum is deduced. The final step in the creation of these models is to observe the individuals behaviour in nature. If the behaviour displayed matches the deduced optimum, then the assumptions made about the costs and benefits of the strategies may be assumed to be …show more content…
This also presents another strategy of anti-bourgeois, where the owner of the territory or resource will surrender to the challenger without fight; however, this strategy is uncommon to see, whereas the bourgeois strategy is far more common (Mesterton-Gibbons & Sherratt, 2014). Examples of this may be seen in the classic hawks and doves game, where if a dove owns a territory, a hawk will not contest this (Mesterton-Gibbons,