Strategy selection under predation; evolutionary analysis of the emergence of cohesive aggregations.

Why do animals form groups? This question has formed the basis of numerous scientific studies over the last hundred years and still remains a controversial topic. Predation is one of the foremost candidates, yet the precise mechanism remains quantitatively elusive. Here I investigate in silico the effect of ongoing predation on groups of heterogeneous individuals behaving according to a well-documented individual based model. I examine the resultant evolutionary trajectories and describe the final selected states and their stability with reference to a qualitatively modified version of adaptive dynamics. The speed of individuals is found to dominate the selection of the final state over other parameters in the model. The relative stability of the groups and their internal configurations are discussed with reference to novel structural correlation functions that are defined and introduced. The results reveal the importance of tightly bound toroidal group structures as an intermediate state prior to the emergence of slow compact groups. The study also indicates the need to more accurately model the speed distributions in real aggregations. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.