IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/dyngam/v4y2014i4p379-390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics of Egg Trading: Mating Rate, Sperm Competition and Positive Frequency-Dependence

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Henshaw
  • Michael Jennions
  • Hanna Kokko

Abstract

Egg trading—the alternating exchange of egg parcels during mating by simultaneous hermaphrodites—is one of the best-documented examples of reciprocity between non-relatives. By offering eggs only to partners who reciprocate, traders increase their reproductive success in the male role, but at a potential cost of delaying or reducing fertilisation of their own eggs. Although several authors have considered the evolutionary stability of egg trading once it has evolved, little attention has been paid to how egg trading can invade a population in the first place. We begin to tackle this problem by formally showing that egg trading is under positive frequency-dependent selection: once the proportion of traders in a population exceeds a certain threshold, egg trading will go to fixation. We show that if mate encounters occur frequently, then the cost of withholding eggs from unreciprocating partners is reduced, making it easier for egg trading to evolve. In contrast, the presence of opportunistic ‘streaking’, where unpaired individuals join mating pairs but contribute only sperm, makes it more difficult for egg trading to invade. This is because streakers weaken the link between the number of eggs an individual can offer and its male-role reproductive success. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Henshaw & Michael Jennions & Hanna Kokko, 2014. "The Economics of Egg Trading: Mating Rate, Sperm Competition and Positive Frequency-Dependence," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 379-390, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:dyngam:v:4:y:2014:i:4:p:379-390
    DOI: 10.1007/s13235-014-0107-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s13235-014-0107-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13235-014-0107-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Clutton-Brock, 2009. "Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies," Nature, Nature, vol. 462(7269), pages 51-57, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peña, Jorge & Nöldeke, Georg & Puebla, Oscar, 2018. "The evolution of egg trading in simultaneous hermaphrodites," IAST Working Papers 18-85, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Som B Ale & Joel S Brown & Amy T Sullivan, 2013. "Evolution of Cooperation: Combining Kin Selection and Reciprocal Altruism into Matrix Games with Social Dilemmas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(5), pages 1-8, May.
    2. Schimit, P.H.T. & Santos, B.O. & Soares, C.A., 2015. "Evolution of cooperation in Axelrod tournament using cellular automata," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 437(C), pages 204-217.
    3. Gao, Lei & Li, Yaotang & Wang, Zhen & Wang, Rui-Wu, 2022. "Asymmetric strategy setup solve the Prisoner’s Dilemma of the evolution of mutualism," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 412(C).
    4. Zhu, Jiabao & Liu, Xingwen, 2021. "The number of strategy changes can be used to promote cooperation in spatial snowdrift game," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 575(C).
    5. Hammerstein, Peter & Leimar, Olof, 2015. "Evolutionary Game Theory in Biology," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    6. Dirk Helbing & Anders Johansson, 2010. "Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Mohammad Salahshour, 2021. "Freedom to choose between public resources promotes cooperation," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-15, February.
    8. Paganelli, Maria Pia, 2011. "The same face of the two Smiths: Adam Smith and Vernon Smith," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 246-255, May.
    9. Hannes Rusch & Max Albert, 2013. "Indirect Reciprocity, Golden Opportunities for Defection, and Inclusive Reputation," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201329, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    10. Markus Port & Rufus A. Johnstone & Peter M. Kappeler, 2012. "The evolution of multimale groups in Verreaux's sifaka, or how to test an evolutionary demographic model," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(4), pages 889-897.
    11. Joseph Bozorgmehr, 2012. "Natural selection as a paradigm of opportunism in biology," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 61-75, April.
    12. Benjamin M Zagorsky & Johannes G Reiter & Krishnendu Chatterjee & Martin A Nowak, 2013. "Forgiver Triumphs in Alternating Prisoner's Dilemma," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-8, December.
    13. Kaare B Mikkelsen & Lars A Bach, 2016. "Threshold Games and Cooperation on Multiplayer Graphs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, February.
    14. Maxwell N Burton-Chellew & Stuart A West, 2012. "Correlates of Cooperation in a One-Shot High-Stakes Televised Prisoners' Dilemma," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-10, April.
    15. Zhang, Jing & Li, Zhao & Zhang, Jiqiang & Ma, Lin & Zheng, Guozhong & Chen, Li, 2023. "Emergence of oscillatory cooperation in a population with incomplete information," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 617(C).
    16. Daniela Campobello & Maurizio Sarà & James F. Hare, 2012. "Under my wing: lesser kestrels and jackdaws derive reciprocal benefits in mixed-species colonies," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(2), pages 425-433.
    17. Sergio Beraldo, 2015. "On the economic relevance of the principle of gratuitousness," International Journal of Happiness and Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(3), pages 204-215.
    18. Mesoudi, Alex & Jimenez, Angel V & Jensen, Keith & Chang, Lei, 2024. "From information free-riding to information sharing: how have humans solved the cooperative dilemma at the heart of cumulative cultural evolution?," SocArXiv a9zty_v1, Center for Open Science.
    19. Mia-Lana Lührs & Melanie Dammhahn & Peter Kappeler, 2013. "Editor's choice Strength in numbers: males in a carnivore grow bigger when they associate and hunt cooperatively," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 24(1), pages 21-28.
    20. Mesoudi, Alex & Jimenez, Angel V & Jensen, Keith & Chang, Lei, 2024. "From information free-riding to information sharing: how have humans solved the cooperative dilemma at the heart of cumulative cultural evolution?," SocArXiv a9zty, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:dyngam:v:4:y:2014:i:4:p:379-390. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.