Seasonal Floquet states in a game-driven evolutionary dynamics

Abstract

Mating preferences of many biological species are not constant but season-dependent. Within the framework of evolutionary game theory this can be modeled with two finite opposite-sex populations playing against each other following the rules that are periodically changing. By combining Floquet theory and the concept of quasi-stationary distributions, we reveal existence of metastable time-periodic states in the evolution of finite game-driven populations. The evolutionary Floquet states correspond to time-periodic probability flows in the strategy space which cannot be resolved within the mean-field framework. The lifetime of metastable Floquet states increases with the size $N$ of populations so that they become attractors in the limit $N \rightarrow \infty$.