Strategy (biology)
| Evolutionarily stable strategy | |
|---|---|
| A solution concept in game theory | |
| Relationship | |
| Subset of | Nash equilibrium |
| Superset of | , Stable Strong Nash equilibrium |
| Intersects with | Subgame perfect equilibrium, Trembling hand perfect equilibrium, Perfect Bayesian equilibrium |
| Significance | |
| Proposed by | John Maynard Smith and George R. Price |
| Used for | Biological modeling and Evolutionary game theory |
| Example | Hawk-dove |
An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) is a strategy which, if adopted by a population in a given environment, cannot be invaded by any alternative strategy that is initially rare. It is relevant in game theory, behavioural ecology, and evolutionary psychology. An ESS is an equilibrium refinement of the Nash equilibrium. It is a Nash equilibrium that is "evolutionarily" stable: once it is fixed in a population, natural selection alone is sufficient to prevent alternative (mutant) strategies from invading successfully. The theory is not intended to deal with the possibility of gross external changes to the environment that bring new selective forces to bear.
First published as a specific term in the 1972 book by John Maynard Smith, the ESS is widely used in behavioural ecology and economics, and has been used in anthropology, evolutionary psychology, philosophy, and political science.
Evolutionarily stable strategies were defined and introduced by John Maynard Smith and George R. Price in a 1973 Nature paper. Such was the time taken in peer-reviewing the paper for Nature that this was preceded by a 1972 essay by Maynard Smith in a book of essays titled On Evolution. The 1972 essay is sometimes cited instead of the 1973 paper, but university libraries are much more likely to have copies of Nature. Papers in Nature are usually short; in 1974, Maynard Smith published a longer paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Maynard Smith explains further in his 1982 book Evolution and the Theory of Games. Sometimes these are cited instead. In fact, the ESS has become so central to game theory that often no citation is given, as the reader is assumed to be familiar with it.
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