Tan Zhi Xuan, Cheong Kang Hao
Yale University, New Haven, United States.
Engineering Cluster, Singapore Institute of Technology, , Singapore.
Elife. 2017 Jan 13;6:e21673. doi: 10.7554/eLife.21673.
Organisms often exhibit behavioral or phenotypic diversity to improve population fitness in the face of environmental variability. When each behavior or phenotype is individually maladaptive, alternating between these losing strategies can counter-intuitively result in population persistence-an outcome similar to the Parrondo's paradox. Instead of the capital or history dependence that characterize traditional Parrondo games, most ecological models which exhibit such paradoxical behavior depend on the presence of exogenous environmental variation. Here we present a population model that exhibits Parrondo's paradox through capital and history-dependent dynamics. Two sub-populations comprise our model: nomads, who live independently without competition or cooperation, and colonists, who engage in competition, cooperation, and long-term habitat destruction. Nomads and colonists may alternate behaviors in response to changes in the colonial habitat. Even when nomadism and colonialism individually lead to extinction, switching between these strategies at the appropriate moments can paradoxically enable both population persistence and long-term growth.
面对环境变化时，生物常常表现出行为或表型多样性，以提高种群适应性。当每种行为或表型单独来看都不利于生存时，在这些失败策略之间交替，反而会出人意料地导致种群持续存在——这一结果类似于帕隆多悖论。与传统帕隆多游戏所具有的资本或历史依赖性不同，大多数表现出这种悖论行为的生态模型依赖于外部环境变化的存在。在此，我们提出一个通过资本和历史依赖动态表现出帕隆多悖论的种群模型。我们的模型由两个亚种群组成：游牧者，他们独立生活，没有竞争或合作；殖民者，他们进行竞争、合作，并长期破坏栖息地。游牧者和殖民者可能会根据殖民地栖息地的变化交替行为。即使游牧和殖民单独都会导致灭绝，但在适当的时候在这些策略之间切换，却能反常地使种群持续存在并长期增长。
