This week I had the opportunity to join Dr. Jennifer Smith’s Marine Biology course at Mills College in Oakland, CA. The students, Dr. Smith, and I spent the afternoon talking about how Game Theory can help us understand behavioral interactions in Marine Ecosystems. We had a great time playing “Fighting Eel – Displaying Eel” (Hawk-Dove game) and a Producer – Scrounger game based on algal farming in damselfish. In addition to hearing a lot about many cool marine organisms, the students also learned about Evolutionarily Stable Strategies, and how the costs and benefits impact the outcome of games. We also explored how the order of decisions in sequential games may influence the outcome of games depending on whether or not players have shared interests. On top of it all, we ate a lot of candy!
Dr. Smith has an amazing class. I was honored to get to meet and interact with such a bright group of young scientists and tell them about some of my work on cichlid fishes, as well as the research of several of my colleagues Julie Zill (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa), Dr. Michael Gil (University of California, Santa Cruz), and research done by several of my undergraduate students from a Marine Ecology course I co-taught this spring!
The Ligocki Lab 