Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz 78315, Germany.
J R Soc Interface. 2023 May;20(202):20220866. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2022.0866. Epub 2023 May 24.
We present a general theoretical model for the spatio-temporal dynamics of animal contests. Inspired by interactions between physical particles, the model is formulated in terms of effective interaction potentials, which map typical elements of contest behaviour into empirically verifiable rules of contestant motion. This allows us to simulate the observable dynamics of contests in various realistic scenarios, notably in dyadic contests over a localized resource. Assessment strategies previously formulated in game-theoretic models, as well as the effects of fighting costs, can be described as variations in our model's parameters. Furthermore, the trends of contest duration associated with these assessment strategies can be derived and understood within the model. Detailed description of the contestants' motion enables the exploration of spatio-temporal properties of asymmetric contests, such as the emergence of chase dynamics. Overall, our framework aims to bridge the growing gap between empirical capabilities and theory in this widespread aspect of animal behaviour.
我们提出了一个用于动物竞争的时空动力学的通用理论模型。受物理粒子相互作用的启发，该模型是用有效相互作用势来表述的，这些势将竞争行为的典型要素映射到可经验验证的参赛者运动规则中。这使我们能够模拟各种现实场景中的竞争的可观察动态，特别是在局部资源上的二元竞争中。博弈论模型中以前提出的评估策略，以及战斗成本的影响，可以被描述为我们模型参数的变化。此外，与这些评估策略相关的竞争持续时间趋势可以在模型内推导和理解。参赛者运动的详细描述使我们能够探索不对称竞争的时空特性，例如追逐动力学的出现。总的来说，我们的框架旨在弥合动物行为这一广泛方面的经验能力和理论之间日益扩大的差距。
