A Game-Theoretic Investigation of Selection Methods in Two-population Coevolution

We examine the dynamical and game-theoretic properties of several selection methods in the context of twopopulation coevolution. The methods we examine are fitness-proportional, linear rank, truncation, and (μ, λ)-ES selection. We use simple symmetric variable-sum games in an evolutionary game-theoretic framework. Our results indicate that linear rank, truncation, and (μ, λ)-ES selection are somewhat better-behaved in a two-population setting than in the one-population case analyzed by Ficici et al. [4]. These alternative selection methods maintain the Nashequilibrium attractors found in proportional selection, but also add non-Nash attractors as well as regions of phasespace that lead to cyclic dynamics. Thus, these alternative selection methods do not properly implement the Nashequilibrium solution concept