adaptive dynamics
Kuijper B, Pen I & Weissing FJ 2012 A guide to sexual selection theory. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 43:287-311.
- 2.3. Invasion Analysis
- quantitative genetics is based on the assumption that a continuous distribution of phenotypes (and typically also genotypes) is available at all times
- evolutionary game theory, adaptive dynamics, and other phenotypic approaches (Weissing 1996) consider the opposite extreme of a monomorphic resident population that is repeatedly challenged by the invasion attempts of rare mutants
- the underlying idea is that evolution proceeds by a series of subsequent invasion and trait-substitution events
- the exact dynamics of how a mutant coexists with and replaces the resident are not modeled explicitly
- population dynamical considerations are used to derive an expression for the invasion fitness of rare mutants
- this fitness function is then systematically analyzed to identify evolutionarily stable strategies and other potential end points of the evolutionary process
- one key assumption is that populations are nearly monomorphic
- because variation in male ornamentation is essential to the evolution of female choice, additional assumptions are necessary to maintain genetic variation
- the amount of variation that is maintained can alter the outcome in surprising ways
- relaxing the assumption that mutants differ only slightly from the resident can also strongly affect the evolutionary dynamics
- phenotypic models do not easily allow for a dynamical description of linkage disequilibria
