Figure 5.

The sequential game equilibrium remains for continuous games such as the famous Cournot duopoly game. (A) Our model of interspecies conflict over how much of a resource with shared production costs to use. From the payout function, one can derive best response curves for the host and symbiont. If the two players move simultaneously, the equilibrium is where the best response curves intersect, but if the players move sequentially, the first player can do better by using more resources. Because of the linearity of the costs and benefits, the first player's optimal move is the monopolist's best move. (B) As RER increases, the population shifts from the simultaneous to the sequential equilibrium, with the host moving first. For model details, see Supplemental Methods.