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  • Title: TIT FOR TAT in sticklebacks and the evolution of cooperation.
    Author: Milinski M.
    Journal: Nature; ; 325(6103):433-5. PubMed ID: 3808044.
    Abstract:
    The problems of achieving mutual cooperation can be formalized in a game called the Prisoner's Dilemma in which selfish defection is always more rewarding than cooperation. If the two protagonists have a certain minimum probability of meeting again a strategy called TIT FOR TAT is very successful. In TIT FOR TAT the player cooperates on the first move and thereafter does whatever the opponent did on the previous move. I have studied the behaviour of fish when confronting a potential predator, because conflicts can arise within pairs of fish in these circumstances which I argue resemble a series of games of Prisoner's Dilemma. Using a system of mirrors, single three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) approaching a live predator were provided with either a simulated cooperating companion or a simulated defecting one. In both cases the test fish behaved according to TIT FOR TAT supporting the hypothesis that cooperation can evolve among egoists.
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