The evolutionarily stable strategy for a given payoff matrix contest, although originally determined in terms of a haploid population, has been shown elsewhere to correspond to an equilibrium of the mean strategy of a diploid population. In this note, the equilibrium is shown to be locally stable for diploid populations. This local stability is demonstrated primarily by relating the behaviour of the perturbed diploid population to one, or in some cases two, associated haploid populations.

A simple argument demonstrates that the mean strategy of a diploid sexual population at evolutionary equilibrium can be expected to be an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) in the formal sense. This result follows under a wide set of models of genetic inheritance of strategy (including sexual selection) provided that the ESS is both attainable and maintainable.

A class of Lyapunov functions is used to demonstrate that strategy stability occurs in complex randomly mating diploid populations. Strategies close to the evolutionarily stable strategy tend to fare better than more remote strategies. If convergence in mean strategy to an evolutionarily stable strategy is not possible, evolution will continue until all strategies in use lie on a unique face of the convex hull of available strategies.

The results obtained are also relevant to the haploid parthenogenetic case.