Long-Term Evolution, Short-Term Evolution, and Population Genetic Theory

This note is intended to reconcile the two most widely used approaches to quantitative evolutionary theory: exact population genetic analysis and purely phenotypic analysis commonly cast in terms of population game theory or evolutionary stable strategies (ESS). To this end, we introduce a dichotomy between long- and short-term evolution. The latter is the domain of most population genetic theory while the former provides a paradigm to connect population genetics with population game theory. Convergence to an ESS in multilocus genetic in systems is discussed in terms of long-term evolution.