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The way I’ve always imagined crown shyness (from a total less-than-layman perspective where I’ve only casually read about the topic) is from a game theory/selfi
by ninkendo 3y ago
The way I’ve always imagined crown shyness (from a total less-than-layman perspective where I’ve only casually read about the topic) is from a game theory/selfish gene perspective. Trees of the same species will share a lot of the same genes, and genes that code for non-shyness will grow to the detriment of the trees around them. Trees which critically are very likely to share a lot of the same genes. So that non-shyness gene will lose out in the long run against genes that code for shyness.
It’s similar to the prisoner’s dilemma, with shyness being “cooperate” and non-shyness being “defect”. Groups of trees with cooperative strategies would do better collectively (and win out), even if a non-cooperative individual can beat a cooperative individual every time.
Veritasium had a great video on this very topic today, in fact: https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM
- schneems 3y agoIn “the hidden life of trees” the author talks about forests being stronger than individual trees. Which I believe agrees with your conclusion. As a tree you don’t want to get dwarfed, starved and die. But you also don’t want to kill your neighbors either since they could be providing a wind break and helping you survive. Essentially their evolution has taught them that sharing, within reason, is an optimal strategy than pure greed. The book goes into much more detail. I’m paraphrasing.
- spiritplumber 3y agohttps://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/ If people want to derp around with an iterated prisoner's dilemma sim, try this, it's fun!