O. Leimar

Social bond dynamics and the evolution of helping

This paper develops a game theory model to explore how social bonds between group members can promote cooperation through reciprocal helping, finding that small social neighborhoods are needed for evolutionary stability.

Flexibility of learning in complex worlds

The paper compares fixed and flexible learning rates in volatile environments, finding flexible rates improve reversal learning but not learning set formation.

Effects of local versus global competition on reproductive skew and sex differences in social dominance behaviour

The paper uses game theory and simulations to show that local competition promotes reproductive skew and mating interference, while global competition reduces aggression but not skew.

Reproductive skew, fitness costs, and winner-loser effects in social-dominance evolution

The paper uses game theory and simulations to study how social hierarchies affect reproductive skew, fitness costs, and winner-loser effects in group-living animals.

The evolution of social dominance through reinforcement learning

This study uses a game-theory model to show that evolution favors social competence in animals, including individual recognition and bystander learning, aligning with experimental observations on dominance hierarchies.

The evolution of social learning as phenotypic cue integration

The paper models how social learning interacts with other developmental inputs to shape phenotypic variation in fluctuating environments.

Ecological genetic conflict between specialism and plasticity through genomic islands of divergence

The paper explores ecological genetic conflict between habitat specialism and phenotypic plasticity through genomic islands of divergence, showing how genetic architecture influences reaction norm slopes.