Ashby B & Best A (2025) Adaptive dynamics. Reference Module in Life Sciences
Abstract
Adaptive Dynamics is a widely used approach to model the evolution of quantitative traits. Its roots lie in quantitative genetics and evolutionary game theory, but its strengths lie in its ability to simultaneously capture ecological and evolutionary dynamics while maintaining analytic tractability. Today, Adaptive Dynamics is applied to a broad range of topics across evolutionary biology, from evolutionary epidemiology to sexual selection to altruism. Here, we discuss the foundations of Adaptive Dynamics and illustrate how the framework can be applied to understand eco-evolutionary dynamics.