Evolutionary games

This paper deals with a mathematical game. As the name implies, the game concept is formulated with biological evolution in mind. An evolutionary game differs from the usual game concepts in that the players cannot choose their strategies. Rather, the strategies used by the players are handed down from generation to generation. It is the survival characteristics of a strategy that determine the outcome of the evolutionary game. Players interact and receive payoffs according to the strategies they are using. These interactions, in turn, determine the fitness of players using a given strategy. The survival characteristics of strategy are determined directly from the fitness functions. Necessary conditions for determining an evolutionarily stable strategy are developed here for a continuous game. Results are illustrated with an example.Dedicated to G. LeitmannThis work was supported by NSF Grant No. INT-82-10803 and The University of Western Australia (Visiting Fellowship, Department of Mathematics, 1983).