Adaptive movement strategy in rock-paper-scissors models

Abstract

Organisms may respond to local stimuli that benefit or threaten their fitness. The adaptive movement behaviour may allow individuals to adjust their speed to maximise the chances of being in comfort zones, where death risk is minimal. We investigate spatial cyclic models where the rock-paper-scissors game rules describe the nonhierarchical dominance. We assume that organisms of one out of the species can control the mobility rate in response to the information obtained from scanning the environment. Running a series of stochastic simulations, we quantify the effects of the movement strategy on the spatial patterns and population dynamics. Our findings show that the ability to change mobility to adapt to environmental clues is not reflected in an advantage in cyclic spatial games. The adaptive movement provokes a delay in the spatial domains occupied by the species in the spiral waves, making the group more vulnerable to the advance of the dominant species and less efficient in taking territory from the dominated species. Our outcomes also show that the effects of adaptive movement behaviour accentuate whether most individuals have a long-range neighbourhood perception. Our results may be helpful for biologists and data scientists to comprehend the dynamics of ecosystems where adaptive processes are fundamental.