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Behavioral Strategy Chases Promote the Evolution...
Journal article

Behavioral Strategy Chases Promote the Evolution of Prey Intelligence*

Abstract

Predator-prey coevolution is commonly thought to result in reciprocal arms races that produce increasingly extreme and complex traits. However, such directional change is not inevitable. Here, we provide evidence for a previously undemonstrated dynamic that we call ’strategy chases,’ wherein populations explore strategies with similar levels of complexity, but differing behaviorally. Indeed, in populations of evolving digital organisms, as prey evolved more effective predatoravoidance strategies, they explored a wider range of behavioral strategies in addition to exhibiting increased levels of behavioral complexity. Furthermore, coevolved prey became more adept in foraging, evidently through coopting components of explored sense-and-flee avoidance strategies into sense-and-retrieve foraging strategies. Specifically, we demonstrate that coevolution induced non-escalating exploration of behavioral space, corresponding with significant evolutionary advancements, including increasingly intelligent behavioral strategies.

Authors

Wagner AP; Zaman L; Dworkin I; Ofria C

Journal

Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, , , pp. 225–246

Publisher

Springer Nature

Publication Date

October 4, 2013

DOI

10.1007/978-3-030-39831-6_17

ISSN

1932-0167

Labels

Fields of Research (FoR)

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