Beyond payoff neutrality: How generalized subpopulation interactions drive cooperation in structured populations

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Game theory
• Social dynamics

Background:

• Cooperation evolution in structured populations is vital for social challenges.
• Previous work highlighted payoff-neutral subpopulations' role in enhancing cooperation.
• The influence of diverse inter-subpopulation relationships remained unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how generalized inter-subpopulation relationships (competition, mutualism, parasitism) affect cooperation evolution.
• To extend existing models by incorporating inter-subpopulation payoffs (α and β).
• To analyze cooperation dynamics in both fully connected and structured networks.

Main Methods:

• Evolutionary analysis of game theory models.
• Simulations of prisoner's dilemma within subpopulations and generalized interactions between them.
• Varying inter-subpopulation payoffs (α and β) to represent different relationship types.

Main Results:

• In fully connected networks, generalized relationships mirrored payoff-neutral scenarios.
• In structured populations, diverse relationships offered novel pathways for cooperation.
• Mutualism (α>0,β>0) maximized cooperation when network structure sufficed.
• Competition (α<0,β<0) and parasitism (α>0,β<0) sustained cooperation when network structure alone did not.

Conclusions:

• Inter-subpopulation relationships are critical determinants of cooperation evolution.
• Competitive and parasitic relationships can be potent drivers of cooperation under specific network conditions.
• Findings offer nuanced insights into the complex interplay of network structure and inter-group dynamics in shaping social behavior.