Disbandment rules that most facilitate the evolution of cooperation

In this study, we make a mathematical analysis using evolutionary game theory. Our results show that the critical number of rounds increases greatly as the group size increases. Consequently, for species with large group sizes, e.g., Homo sapiens, under plausible parameter values, the strict homogeneity rule is unlikely to facilitate the evolution of cooperation. We find instead that a disbandment rule that requires a threshold level of homogeneity outperformed the strict homogeneity rule. Furthermore, we calculate the position of internal equilibria at which cooperators and defectors coexist and show that the initial evolution of cooperation is most encouraged when cooperators are tolerant (intolerant) of defectors if the benefit-to-cost ratio is large (small).PMID:37683696 | DOI:10.1016/j.tpb.2023.08.004

Source: Theoretical Population Biology - September 8, 2023 Category: Biology Authors: Shun Kurokawa Source Type: research