11.15-12.00: Single Population Dynamics
Janusz Uchmaski
Centre for Ecological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Dziekanów Leśny, Poland
Abstract: Life exists in the form of individuals. Their life can be described by a simple energetic model. Individuals assimilate energy, and then utilize it for growth and later for reproduction. But individuals live together and the amount of energy which is available to them is less then their total needs. How individuals divide resources between them. Equally? If not equally, then how? Have we any information on resource partitioning among competing individuals of the same species and the same age and sex? Can we obtain such information directly from experiments or indirectly? Is unequal resource partitioning reflected in individual differences in progeny production? If individual (of the same species, the same age and sex) are not equal, how their population dynamics looks like and is it different from population dynamics of equal individuals? Is individual variability always present in natural systems?
13.15-14.00: When Do Optimisation Arguments Make Evolutionary Sense
Mats Gyllenberg
University of Helsinki
Abstract: It is a widespread misconception that evolution by natural selection maximises some quantity like the lifetime reproductive success. In this talk I give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an optimisation principle in terms of the well-known rock-scissors-paper game.