Evolutionary Game Theory, Natural Selection, and

—Vincent and Brown 2005, p. 72While many books have been written about evolutionary game theory over the last couple ofdecades,ThomasVincentandJoelBrown’srecentbook,aculminationoftheircollaborationoveralmost two decades, is especially ambitious in both breadth and depth. In terms of breadth theauthors address a much wider array of biological phenomena (both evolutionary and ecological)than is typical. In addition, whereas classic evolutionary game theory limits itself to behavioralinteractions and phenotypes, this book takes a very broad view of what constitutes a “game”and places natural selection itself firmly within a game-theoretic framework. In terms of depth,the authors heartily embrace (and demonstrate how to model) many of the complexities inevolving systems. These include simultaneous selection on multiple traits, the effect of resourceavailability and distributions on selection, co-evolution among species, and evolution in thecontext of multiple life history stages.Of course this depth requires more mathematical complexity. Thankfully, the book is wellorganizedsuchthateachchapter,especiallythosethatdevelopthecoreoftheauthors’techniques(Ch. 4–7), introduces concepts with well written verbal descriptions, then with simple examples,and finally with a progression of more complicated and mathematically sophisticated cases. Thisallows readers of varying mathematical sophistication to go as far into each chapter as desired,while still gaining enough of the overall message to progress to subsequent chapters.Game theory originated in economics (von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1947) as a tool forreasoning about how rational individuals (players) should behave in various kinds of “conflictof interest” situations in order to maximize benefit (utility) to themselves. Quickly adapted byother social sciences, game theory proved useful in analyzing phenomena as diverse as ColdWar nuclear conflict scenarios, marital strife, and cooperation among unrelated humans in rural