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The next seminar in the first semester programme of seminars of the Manchester Centre for Statistical Science will take place in: Room 1.09 The Mathematics Buiding The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchseter at 2.15 p.m. on Wednesday 4th November. The speaker is Dr Mark Broom, School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Sussex. Title: Evolutionarily Stable Stealing: Game Theory Applied to Kleptoparasitism. Abstract: We present an individual-based model of a group of foraging animals. Individuals can obtain food either by discovering it themselves or by stealing it from others (kleptoparasitism). Given that challenging for a discovered food item costs time (which could otherwise be spent searching for an undiscovered item), attempting to steal from another may not always be efficient. We show that there is generally a unique strategy which maximises uptake rate; this is either to always or never challenge others. For any combination of parameter values, we can identify which strategy is appropriate. As a corollary to this, we predict that small changes in ecological conditions can under some circumstances (which we identify) cause a dramatic change in the aggressive behaviour of individuals. Further we investigate situations where searching for undiscovered food and searching for potential opportunities for stealing are mutually exclusive activities, i.e. success at one can only be improved at the expense of the other. Using game theory we are able to find the evolutionarily stable strategy for investment in these two activities, in terms of the ecological parameters of the model. The seminar will be followed by tea. All those who are interested are very welcome to attend. Please note that full details of the first semester seminars are available at: http://www.ma.man.ac.uk/News/seminar.htm Peter Foster Dept of Mathematics The University of Manchester %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%