PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Alan R. Rogers
TI  - Beating your Neighbor to the Berry Patch
AID  - 10.1101/2020.11.12.380311
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.11.12.380311
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/07/2020.11.12.380311.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/07/2020.11.12.380311.full
AB  - This article uses evolutionary game theory to study the situation in which multiple foragers compete for a resource that ripens (or otherwise improves) gradually. Although there is no evolutionarily stable strategy, there is a unique mixed Nash equilibrium (NE). This equilibrium, however, is unstable: mixed strategies that are similar to the NE can invade. The NE resists pure-strategy invaders provided that either the cost of visiting the resource or number of competitors is large. These same conditions also imply that mixed-strategy dynamics will remain in the neighborhood of the NE. The NE is therefore predictive in spite of its instability. In an experimental game, the behavior of human subjects was similar to the NE. The properties of the NE are bizarre: the larger the number of foragers, the lower the likelihood that the resource will be harvested at all and the greater its mean value at time of harvest.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.