Cooperative Strategies and the Evolution of Communication

Using communication is not the only cooperative strategy that can evolve when organisms need to solve a problem together. This article describes a model that extends MacLennan and Burghardt's [37] synthetic ethology simulation to show that using a spatial world in a simulation allows a wider range of strategies to evolve in response to environmental demands. The model specifically explores the interaction between population density and resource abundance and their effect on the kinds of cooperative strategies that evolve. Signaling strategies evolve except when population density is high or resource abundance is low.