Intermediate Stories For Reproduction 2 L A Hill
Berry Spitsberg
What is happening at these intermediate selection intensities? For one, drift is still strong enough that the population can transition into a favorable state for producers, such as the one with a producer at the hub and a small number of producers at the periphery. At this point, using ff-goods as an example, the producer at the hub has a greater payoff than all other individuals in the population because they pay a single cost, c, but receive the whole benefit, b, from each of several neighbors. While drift is strong enough to visit such a state, so too is selection strong enough to drive the population to an all-producer state. The individual at the hub is chosen for reproduction disproportionately often, and the offspring must replace individuals at the periphery, eventually driving non-producers to extinction. When selection is too weak, these favorable states are not favored enough to overcome the effects of drift. When selection is too strong, these favorable states are unlikely to be visited in the first place.