Related papers: Does Greed Help a Forager Survive?
The foraging behavior of animals is a paradigm of target search in nature. Understanding which foraging strategies are optimal and how animals learn them are central challenges in modeling animal foraging. While the question of optimality…
We study the spatial rock-paper-scissors model, where resource competitors' cyclic dominance impacts organisms' energy levels. Our model assumes that failed selection interactions can lead to energy loss, reducing the chances of success in…
Many networks are used to transfer information or goods, in other words, they are navigated. The larger the network, the more difficult it is to navigate efficiently. Indeed, information routing in the Internet faces serious scalability…
$\varepsilon$-greedy is a policy used to balance exploration and exploitation in many reinforcement learning setting. In cases where the agent uses some on-policy algorithm to learn optimal behaviour, it makes sense for the agent to explore…
In ecology, prey switching refers to a predator's adaptive change of habitat or diet in response to prey abundance. In this paper, we study piecewise-smooth models of predator-prey interactions with a linear trade-off in a predator's prey…
Random walks are powerful tools to analyze spatial-temporal patterns produced by living organisms ranging from cells to humans. At the same time, it is evident that these patterns are not completely random but are results of a convolution…
Varying environmental conditions affect relations between interacting individuals in social dilemmas, thus affecting also the evolution of cooperation. Oftentimes these environmental variations are seasonal and can therefore be…
Collective sensing is an emergent phenomenon which enables individuals to estimate a hidden property of the environment through the observation of social interactions. Previous work on collective sensing shows that gregarious individuals…
We consider a three-level food chain in which an epidemics affects the intermediate population. Two models are presented, respectively either allowing for unlimited food supply for the bottom prey, or instead assuming for it a logistic…
In spatial evolutionary games the fitness of each individual is traditionally determined by the payoffs it obtains upon playing the game with its neighbors. Since defection yields the highest individual benefits, the outlook for cooperators…
We introduce a model of traveling agents ({\it e.g.} frugivorous animals) who feed on randomly located vegetation patches and disperse their seeds, thus modifying the spatial distribution of resources in the long term. It is assumed that…
A swarm of preys when attacked by a predator is known to rely on their cooperative interactions to escape. Understanding such interactions of collectively moving preys and the emerging patterns of their escape trajectories still remain…
In this paper, we study the dynamics of a random walker diffusing on a disordered one-dimensional lattice with random trappings. The distribution of escape probabilities is computed exactly for any strength of the disorder. These…
A sequential decision-making agent balances between exploring to gain new knowledge about an environment and exploiting current knowledge to maximize immediate reward. For environments studied in the traditional literature, optimal…
We introduce a measure of {\em greedy connectivity} for geographical networks (graphs embedded in space) and where the search for connecting paths relies only on local information, such as a node's location and that of its neighbors.…
Two density-dependent branching processes are considered to model predator-prey populations. For both models, preys are considered to be the main food supply of predators. Moreover, in each generation the number of individuals of each…
We study the survival probability of an immobile target in presence of N independent diffusing walkers. We address the problem of the Mean Target Lifetime and its dependence on the number and initial distribution of the walkers when the…
Mutualistic interactions benefit both partners, promoting coexistence and genetic diversity. Spatial structure can promote cooperation, but spatial expansions may also make it hard for mutualistic partners to stay together, since genetic…
Genetic information and environmental factors determine the path of an individuals life and therefore, the evolution of its entire species. We have succeeded in proposing and studying a model that captures this idea. In our model, a…
The study of the evolution of cooperative behaviours --which provide benefits to others-- and altruism --which provides benefits to others at a cost to oneself-- has been on the core of the evolutionary game theoretical framework since its…