Difffusion Dynamics on the Coexistence Subspace in a Stochastic Evolutionary Game

Abstract

Frequency-dependent selection reflects the interaction between different species as they battle for limited resources in their environment. In a stochastic evolutionary game the species relative fitnesses guides the evolutionary dynamics which fluctuate due to random drift. Dependence of species selection advantages on the environment introduces additional possibilities for the evolutionary dynamics. We analyse a simple model in which a random environment allows competing species to coexist for a long time before a fixation of a single species happens. In our analysis we use stability in a linear combination of competing species to approximate the stochastic dynamics of the system by a diffusion on a one dimensional co-existence region. Our method significantly simplifies calculating the probability of first extinction and its expected time, and demonstrates a rigorous model reduction technique for evaluating quasistationary properties of a stochastic evolutionary model.