Relative population size, co-operation pressure and strategy correlation in two-population evolutionary dynamics

TL;DR

This paper employs statistical mechanics to analyze the coupled dynamics of two populations of random replicators, examining how factors like population size, strategy correlation, and cooperation pressures influence stability and diversity.

Contribution

It generalizes path-integral methods for asymmetric couplings in replicator systems, providing an exact dynamical theory applicable in the thermodynamic limit.

Findings

Derived an effective dynamical theory for coupled populations

Identified conditions for stability and instability

Quantified population diversity and fitness in stationary states

Abstract

We study the coupled dynamics of two populations of random replicators by means of statistical mechanics methods, and focus on the effects of relative population size, strategy correlations and heterogeneities in the respective co-operation pressures. To this end we generalise existing path-integral approaches to replicator systems with random asymmetric couplings. This technique allows one to formulate an effective dynamical theory, which is exact in the thermodynamic limit and which can be solve for persistent order parameters in a fixed-point regime regardless of the symmetry of the interactions. The onset of instability can be determined self-consistently. We calculate quantities such as the diversity of the respective populations and their fitnesses in the stationary state, and compare results with data from a numerical integration of the replicator equations