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Individual mobility promotes punishment in evolutionary public goods games
Rui Cong1, Qianchuan Zhao2, Kun Li3
1Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems, Department of Automation and TNList, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
Scientific Reports
|October 27, 2017
Summary
Altruistic punishers can survive by migrating strategically. Optimal mobility balances punishment costs, favoring survival even against defectors or when rare.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Social sciences
- Game theory
Background:
- Cooperation emergence in self-interested populations is a key issue.
- Altruistic punishment is crucial for maintaining cooperation but costly for punishers.
- Individual mobility's role in cooperation is known, but its impact on punishers is unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how individual mobility affects the survival of altruistic punishers.
- To model punisher behavior incorporating a choice between staying to punish or migrating.
Main Methods:
- Agent-based modeling incorporating individual mobility and punishment strategies.
- Analysis of punisher survival under varying punishment costs and mobility levels.
- Simulation of scenarios with direct competition and inclusion of cooperators.
Main Results:
- Optimal punisher survival is achieved through medium migration tendencies when punishment is costly.
- Mobility offers advantages irrespective of competition type (direct or with cooperators).
- For low punishment costs, mobility provides no significant advantage, even for rare punishers.
Conclusions:
- Individual mobility is a critical factor for the evolutionary stability of altruistic punishment.
- Strategic migration can resolve the survival paradox of costly punishment.
- Findings offer insights into promoting public cooperation through mobility dynamics.
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