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      Predator Dormancy is a Stable Adaptive Strategy due to Parrondo's Paradox

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          Abstract

          Many predators produce dormant offspring to escape harsh environmental conditions, but the evolutionary stability of this adaptation has not been fully explored. Like seed banks in plants, dormancy provides a stable competitive advantage when seasonal variations occur, because the persistence of dormant forms under harsh conditions compensates for the increased cost of producing dormant offspring. However, dormancy also exists in environments with minimal abiotic variation—an observation not accounted for by existing theory. Here it is demonstrated that dormancy can out‐compete perennial activity under conditions of extensive prey density fluctuation caused by overpredation. It is shown that at a critical level of prey density fluctuations, dormancy becomes an evolutionarily stable strategy. This is interpreted as a manifestation of Parrondo's paradox: although neither the active nor dormant forms of a dormancy‐capable predator can individually out‐compete a perennially active predator, alternating between these two losing strategies can paradoxically result in a winning strategy. Parrondo's paradox may thus explain the widespread success of quiescent behavioral strategies such as dormancy, suggesting that dormancy emerges as a natural evolutionary response to the self‐destructive tendencies of overpredation and related biological phenomena.

          Abstract

          Many predators produce dormant offspring to escape harsh conditions, but only at the cost of less offspring. The evolutionary stability of this costly dormancy is explained by Parrondo's paradox. Although both active and dormant forms of dormancy‐capable predators individually lose to perennially active predators, alternating between these losing strategies ensures better recovery after overpredation, resulting in a strategy that wins.

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          Author and article information

          Contributors
          kanghao_cheong@sutd.edu.sg
          Journal
          Adv Sci (Weinh)
          Adv Sci (Weinh)
          10.1002/(ISSN)2198-3844
          ADVS
          Advanced Science
          John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
          2198-3844
          12 December 2019
          February 2020
          : 7
          : 3 ( doiID: 10.1002/advs.v7.3 )
          : 1901559
          Affiliations
          [ 1 ] Science and Math Cluster Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) Singapore S487372 Singapore
          [ 2 ] National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Bethesda MD 20894 USA
          [ 3 ] SUTD‐Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Design Centre Singapore S487372 Singapore
          Author notes
          Author information
          https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4475-5451
          Article
          ADVS1383
          10.1002/advs.201901559
          7001654
          32042555
          063e5f26-1ea2-4634-8cfd-5860ac11c1d4
          © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

          This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

          History
          : 25 June 2019
          : 09 August 2019
          Page count
          Figures: 8, Tables: 1, Pages: 11, Words: 7728
          Funding
          Funded by: Singapore University of Technology and Design , open-funder-registry 10.13039/501100007040;
          Award ID: SRG SCI 2019 142
          Categories
          Full Paper
          Full Papers
          Custom metadata
          2.0
          February 5, 2020
          Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:5.7.5 mode:remove_FC converted:05.02.2020

          evolutionary dynamics,game theory,parrondo's paradox,population dynamics,predatory–prey,predator dormancy

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