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Fighting Walnut Flies: Sequential
Assessment
Let's summarize what we've covered:
- Many animals use behavioral displays to communicate information during
contests.
- It is thought that such displays evolve as a way of determining the
outcome of a contest without the high costs of actual fighting.
- "Sequential assessment" is a series of escalating, increasingly-costly
displays that function to determine the winner when opponents seem to
be equally matched.
- In Game Theory, "sequential assessment" is a variant of
the "Hawk-Dove" game. In this variant, contestants are not
equally matched (the match is asymmetrical) and the contestants signal
their fighting ability to each other.
- Display signals are often costly to produce (although not as costly
as a fight), and because of this, "honest signaling" is the
rule.
Links:
Game-theory web sites.
Web sites with info on threat displays,
sequential assessment, and honest signaling.
End of Fighting Walnut Flies: Sequential Assessment
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