Integration and Segregation in a Population — A Thermodynamicists’s View

Abstract

A population of hawks and doves is considered, who individually behave differently in the contest for a resource, and both groups have two different contest strategies at their disposal. There is a strong analogy between such a population and a mixture of two constituents in two phases. Thus an integrated hawk-dove population corresponds to a homogeneous mixture of constituents and a segregated population corresponds to immiscible constituents. While in the mixture it is the value of the pressure that determines miscibility or immiscibility of the constituents, in the population integration or segregation is determined by the availability of the resource.