TY - JOUR
T1 - Cultural evolution in spatially structured populations
T2 - A review of alternative modeling frameworks
AU - Kandler, Anne
AU - Perreault, Charles
AU - Steele, James
N1 - Funding Information:
This special issue arises from a coordinated action initiated by Kandler and Steele at University College London, England, in 2010, and which was supported by a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant to the AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity. Kandler and Perreault also acknowledge the subsequent support from an Omidyar fellowship from the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, during the preparation of this review article. We gratefully acknowledge the administrative role of Manu Davies (UCL, London) in the co-ordination action, and the numerous anonymous reviewers who contributed peer assessments of the individual contributions.
PY - 2012/3
Y1 - 2012/3
N2 - We consider the dynamics of cultural evolution in spatially-structured populations. Most spatially explicit modeling approaches can be broadly divided into two classes: micro- and macro-level models. Macro-level models study cultural evolution at the population level and describe the average behavior of the considered system. Conversely, micro-level models focus on the constituent units of the system, and study the evolutionary dynamics that emerge out of the interaction between these units. In this paper, we give an overview of the general properties of micro- and macro-level models using the examples of agent-based simulations and of continuum models based in diffusion theory; we highlight how both frameworks account for spatially-dependent processes. We argue that both micro- and macro-level models are well-suited to describe the process of cultural evolution in spatial settings and stress that micro- and macro-level models should not be considered as competing alternatives, but rather as complementary tools that can provide different insights into cultural evolutionary dynamics. Although adding spatial components to any model increases its complexity, we argue (based on the findings presented by contributors to this Special Issue of Advances in Complex Systems), that the incorporation of space into the evolutionary framework is a necessary step towards a more complete understanding of the process of cultural evolution.
AB - We consider the dynamics of cultural evolution in spatially-structured populations. Most spatially explicit modeling approaches can be broadly divided into two classes: micro- and macro-level models. Macro-level models study cultural evolution at the population level and describe the average behavior of the considered system. Conversely, micro-level models focus on the constituent units of the system, and study the evolutionary dynamics that emerge out of the interaction between these units. In this paper, we give an overview of the general properties of micro- and macro-level models using the examples of agent-based simulations and of continuum models based in diffusion theory; we highlight how both frameworks account for spatially-dependent processes. We argue that both micro- and macro-level models are well-suited to describe the process of cultural evolution in spatial settings and stress that micro- and macro-level models should not be considered as competing alternatives, but rather as complementary tools that can provide different insights into cultural evolutionary dynamics. Although adding spatial components to any model increases its complexity, we argue (based on the findings presented by contributors to this Special Issue of Advances in Complex Systems), that the incorporation of space into the evolutionary framework is a necessary step towards a more complete understanding of the process of cultural evolution.
KW - Agent-based simulation
KW - Cultural evolution
KW - Diffusion-reaction systems
KW - Spatial modeling
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U2 - 10.1142/S0219525912030014
DO - 10.1142/S0219525912030014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84858166111
SN - 0219-5259
VL - 15
JO - Advances in Complex Systems
JF - Advances in Complex Systems
IS - 1-2
M1 - 1203001
ER -