Beating your Neighbor to the Berry Patch

10.24072/pcjournal.133 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 2 (2022), article no. e34.

Foragers often compete for resources that ripen (or otherwise improve) gradually. What strategy is optimal in this situation? It turns out that there is no optimal strategy. There is no evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), and the only Nash equilibrium (NE) is unstable: strategies similar to the NE can always invade.  But in spite of this instability, the NE is predictive. If harvesting attempts are costly or there are many competitors, the process tends to remain near the unstable NE.  In this case, the resource often goes unharvested. Harvesting attempts--when they happen at all--usually occur when the resource is barely ripe enough to offset costs. The more foragers there are, the lower the chance that the resource will be harvested and the greater its mean value when harvested. This counterintuitive behavior is exhibited not only by theoretical models and computer simulations, but also by human subjects in an experimental game.

Published online:
DOI: 10.24072/pcjournal.133
Rogers, Alan R. 1

1 Dept. of Anthropology, University of Utah, USA
@article{10_24072_pcjournal_133,
author = {Rogers, Alan R.},
title = {Beating your {Neighbor} to the {Berry} {Patch}},
journal = {Peer Community Journal},
eid = {e34},
publisher = {Peer Community In},
volume = {2},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.24072/pcjournal.133},
url = {https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.133/}
}
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Beating your Neighbor to the Berry Patch
JO  - Peer Community Journal
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022///
VL  - 2
PB  - Peer Community In
UR  - https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.133/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.133
DO  - 10.24072/pcjournal.133
ID  - 10_24072_pcjournal_133
ER  - 
%0 Journal Article
%T Beating your Neighbor to the Berry Patch
%J Peer Community Journal
%D 2022
%V 2
%I Peer Community In
%U https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.133
%R 10.24072/pcjournal.133
%F 10_24072_pcjournal_133
Rogers, Alan R. Beating your Neighbor to the Berry Patch. Peer Community Journal, Volume 2 (2022), article  no. e34. doi : 10.24072/pcjournal.133. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.133/

Peer reviewed and recommended by PCI : 10.24072/pci.ecology.100088

[1] Bennett, I. M. Barí loricarid collection and the value of information: An application of optimal foraging theory, Human Ecology, Volume 19 (1991) no. 4, pp. 517-527 | DOI

[2] Bishop, D.; Cannings, C.; Maynard Smith, J. The war of attrition with random rewards, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 74 (1978) no. 3, pp. 377-388 | DOI

[3] Blurton Jones, N. G.; Smith, L. C.; O'Connell, J. F.; Hawkes, K.; Kamuzora, C. L. Demography of the Hadza, an increasing and high density population of savanna foragers, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 89 (1992) no. 2, pp. 159-181 | DOI

[4] Fox, C. An Introduction to the Calculus of Variations, Dover, New York, 1987

[5] Kalbfleisch, J. D.; Prentice, R. L. The Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data, Wiley, New York, 1980

[6] Levin, D.; Smith, J. L. Equilibrium in Auctions with Entry, The American Economic Review, Volume 84 (1994), pp. 585-599

[7] Maynard Smith, J. Evolution and the Theory of Games, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982

[8] Osborne, M. J.; Rubinstein, A. A Course in Game Theory, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1994

[9] Rogers, A. Supplementary Information for “Beating your neighbor to the berry patch”. Zenodo 6615300, 2022 | DOI

[10] Vickrey, W. Counterspeculation, auctions, and competitive sealed tenders, The Journal of Finance, Volume 16 (1961) no. 1, pp. 8-37 | DOI

[11] Wilson, R. A Bidding Model of Perfect Competition, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 44 (1977) no. 3, pp. 511-518 | DOI

Cited by Sources: