Interaction of migration and frequency dependence in cultural populations

Migration has shaped cultural and genetic diversity. Population genetics shows that low migration rates between populations can homogenise them. However, similar results regarding cultural composition are scarce. Previous work suggests that conformity prevents migration's homogenising effect, maintaining differentiation between populations. We aim to understand how migration and frequency-dependent cultural transmission jointly influence the dynamics of genetic and cultural diversity. We develop a simulation model describing the joint evolution of genetic and cultural diversity under different scenarios of frequency-dependent transmission and migration between two populations. This allows us to examine how the same demographic process can have distinct effects on the two parallel evolutionary processes. We find that anti-conformity promotes differentiation within and between populations across all migration rates compared to the unbiased scenario. In contrast, conformity's effect depends on its strength relative to migration: it can either enhance homogenisation or lead to differentiation. Higher migration rates need stronger conformity to sustain population differentiation. Ultimately, the balance between migration and conformity determines whether populations diverge, converge, or maintain structured variation. These outcomes are robust to initial population heterogeneity. Our findings emphasise that the effect of migration on cultural dynamics cannot be considered in isolation, as it depends on the type and strength of the transmission bias.