Lumping evolutionary game dynamics on networks

Abstract

We study evolutionary game dynamics on networks (EGN), where players reside in the vertices of a graph, and games are played between neighboring vertices. The model is described by a system of ordinary differential equations which depends on players payoff functions, as well as on the adjacency matrix of the underlying graph. Since the number of differential equations increases with the number of vertices in the graph, the analysis of EGN becomes hard for large graphs. Building on the notion of lumpability for Markov chains, we identify conditions on the network structure allowing to reduce the original graph. In particular, we identify a partition of the vertex set of the graph and show that players in the same block of a lumpable partition have equivalent dynamical behaviors, whenever their payoff functions and initial conditions are equivalent. Therefore, vertices belonging to the same partition block can be merged into a single vertex, giving rise to a reduced graph and consequently to a simplified system of equations. We also introduce a tighter condition, called strong lumpability, which can be used to identify dynamical symmetries in EGN which are related to the interchangeability of players in the system.