PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #75: Evolutionary Ecology -- Life histories, interactions.
Presiding: S. Armbruster
Thursday, August 8. 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Graham Meeting Room, TCC.

Adaptive dynamics of mutual aid.

Worden, Lee^*,1, ¹ Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

ABSTRACT- I will present an investigation of adaptive evolutionary change in Lotka-Volterra and closely related systems, including long-term development of properties of the interaction matrix. I will present some mathematical results both in the case that interaction terms (entries in the interaction matrix) evolve independently of each other and in the case of interactions constrained to a low-dimensional tradeoff surface. In the presentation of the mathematics, we will discover a sense in which the system 'gravitates' toward mutualism - ecological cooperation - in each case. Additionally I will discuss how the presence of mutualism appears to change the overall system dynamics qualitatively.

KEY WORDS: Cooperation, Adaptive Dynamics, Mutualism, Altruism