This is a course I gave on the modelling of conflict at the "Mathematical modelling of social behaviour" meeting in Great Hucklow, UK (14-18 Sept. 2001). The type of analysis explained is broadly based on Steve Frank's book "The Foundations of Social Evolution". The handouts and Mathematica notebooks remain available for download below and should be useful for anyone interested in kin selection and the evolution of conflict.

Handout
Overheads
Mathematica notebooks with model solutions

1. Introduction: two-player games
2. Application 1: the evolution of worker reproduction (models Frank 1995 & Wenseleers et al. 2004)
3. Application 2: caste conflict in social insects (model Wenseleers et al. 2003)
4. Assignments

The Mathematica notebook with Assignments contains a section of 'Sociobiology Classics' with model solutions to problems that have featured prominently in the social evolution literature (e.g. the basic Trivers & Hare sex ratio theory, sex ratios under local mate competition, skew theory and Hamilton & May's dispersal model).

If you do not happen to have a copy of Mathematica installed on your computer you can either get a trial version from a software shop or download MathReader which allows you to view, but not alter, the notebooks.

Frank S. A. (1995) Mutual policing and repression of competition in the evolution of cooperative groups. Nature 377: 520-522.

Wenseleers T. (2006) Modelling social evolution: the relative merits and limitations of a Hamilton's rule-based approach. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19: 1419-1422.

Wenseleers T. & Ratnieks F. L. W. (2001) Towards a general theory of conflict: the sociobiology of mendelian segregation. In: Wenseleers T. (2001) Conflict from Cell to Colony. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leuven, Belgium, 205 pp.

Wenseleers T., Hart A.G. & Ratnieks F.L.W. (2004) When resistance is useless: policing and the evolution of reproductive acquiescence in insect societies. American Naturalist 164: E154-E167.

Wenseleers T., Helanterä H., Hart A.G. & Ratnieks F.L.W. (2004) Worker reproduction and policing in insect societies. An ESS analysis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17: 1035-1047.

Wenseleers T. & Ratnieks F.L.W. (2004) Tragedy of the commons in Melipona bees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences 271: S310-S312.

Wenseleers, T., Ratnieks, F. L. W. & Billen, J. (2003) Caste fate conflict in swarm-founding social Hymenoptera: an inclusive fitness analysis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 16: 647-658.

Frank, S. A. (1995) George Price's contributions to evolutionary genetics. Journal of Theoretical Biology 175: 373-388.

Frank, S. A. (1998) Foundations of Social Evolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

Godfray, H. C. J. (1987) The evolution of clutch size in parasitic wasps. American Naturalist 129: 221-233.

Hamilton, W. D. (1995) Narrow Roads of Gene Land. Volume 1. Evolution of Social Behaviour. W.H. Freeman, New York.

Schwartz, J. (2000) Death of an altruist. Was the man who found the selfless gene too good for this world? Lingua Franca 10: July/August issue.

More reprints of Steve Frank's papers can be found here.