A Dynamic Programming Implemented 2x2 non-cooperative Game Theory Model for ESS Analysis

Game Theory has been frequently applied in biological research since 1970s. While the key idea of Game Theory is Nash Equilibrium, it is critical to understand and figure out the payoff matrix in order to calculate Nash Equilibrium. In this paper we present a dynamic programming implemented method to compute 2 × 2 non-cooperative finite resource allocation game's payoff matrix. We assume in one population there exists two types of individuals, aggressive and non-aggressive and each individual has equal and finite resource. The strength of individual could be described by a function of resource consumption in different development stages. Each individual undergoes logistic growth hence we divide the development into three stages: initialization, quasilinear growth and termination. We first discuss the theoretical frame of how to dynamic programming to calculate payoff matrix then give three numerical examples representing three different types of aggressive individuals and calculate the payoff matrix for each of them respectively. Based on the numerical payoff matrix we further investigate the evolutionary stable strategies (ESS) of the games.