Biologists devise unifying framework to explain evolutiona...(operation or competition? he asks. In ...)

From an evolutionary perspective, if the birds are working as a team, Akay continues, how does their teamwork evolve over time? If they're working as individuals against each other, how does each bird play against the other to make the other do more work?

Akay's research has been conducted under the guidance of Stanford University professor Joan Roughgarden, who, along with Akay, is co-organizing the Function and Evolution Working Group at NIMBioS. One of the world's most influential theoretical ecologists, Roughgarden is the author of two books that challenge the Darwinian theory of sexual selection, which says that competition for mates and choice for genetic benefits drives the evolution of certain traits. Roughgarden's new "social selection" theory argues, however, that cooperative processes of breeding, rather than competition and conflict, drive the evolution of reproductive behavior. Akay and Roughgarden have developed mathematical models that use cooperative game theory to test their hypotheses.

The NIMBioS working group, "Integrating Functional and Evolutionary Dynamics at Multiple Scales," aims to introduce new mathematical methods to biology. "The hope is that by doing this work, we will give applied researchers an easier way to utilize evolutionary theory in their work, and ultimately, it will give us a better understanding of how living things evolve," Akay said.

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