On the Sociobiology of Hawks and Doves. A phase diagram for integration and segregation

Competing groups in a population will be integrated or segregated depending on their contest strategies. In this work a population of a fixed proportion of hawks and doves is supposed to be able to employ two different contest strategies, one more competitive than the other one. Energies are derived for populations employing these strategies and these energies depend on the availability of the resource for which hawks and doves compete. The energy for the less competitive strategy is lower than the other one when the resource is abundant. In that case hawks and doves can be in cohabitation in all proportions. If, however, the resource is scarce, the energy of the more competitive strategy is lower than the other one. In that case complete segregation of hawks and doves into colonies will result. The situation is akin to the phase pressure diagram of a binary solution with eutectic point, miscibility gap in the liquid phase and complete miscibility in the vapour phase. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.