Can transitive inference evolve in animals playing the hawk-dove game?

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Game Theory
• Behavioral Ecology
• Animal Behavior

Background:

• Assessing competitor strength is crucial for resource competition.
• Traditional models often assume direct assessment or lack of information.
• Indirect inference mechanisms are vital in natural settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) in the hawk-dove game when opponent's resource-holding potential (RHP) is indirectly inferred.
• To compare classical mixed, imprinting, immediate inference, and transitive inference strategies.

Main Methods:

• Invasibility analysis of different strategies in the hawk-dove game.
• Modeling indirect inference of RHP through past interactions.
• Examining strategy performance under varying game costs and interaction frequencies.

Main Results:

• Transitive inference strategy invades mixed and imprinting strategies and resists their invasion.
• Transitive inference offers the greatest advantage with few games per generation and high costs of losing.
• Immediate inference can be an ESS when fighting costs are low.
• Transitive inference establishes a linear dominance hierarchy, not perfectly correlated with actual RHP.

Conclusions:

• Transitive inference excels at rapidly forming dominance hierarchies, regardless of assessment accuracy.
• The strategy's advantage lies in efficient social structuring rather than precise RHP assessment.
• Understanding indirect inference is key to explaining competitive dynamics in animal populations.