Seminar

Egg trading in hermaphroditic fish: a microeconomic model

Jorge Peña ( IAST)

February 27, 2020, 17:00–18:00

Toulouse

Room Auditorium 3

TSE Campus talk

The sex life of simultaneously hermaphroditic animals is determined by one fundamental question: Who assumes the female role (and produces the costly eggs) and who goes for the cheaper male role? Some species (such as the coral-reef fishes of the genus Hypoplectrus) avoid this dilemma by engaging in reciprocal egg trading, in what constitutes one of the classic examples of tit for tat in non-human animals.

A microeconomic model that analyzes the circumstances required for this fascinating behavior to evolve, and that illustrates the transdisciplinary usefulness of economic ideas and models in evolutionary biology, will be presented.