Evolution Of Cooperation Research Articles

Biological Individuality Is Not Necessarily an Intrinsic Property

A significant and longstanding debate in philosophy of biology has centered around biological individuality. Although there have been numerous attempts to articulate a plausible and unifying view of what makes something a biological individual, the results are often conflicting and non-coextensive. In spite of these disputes, an open consensus around a few general ideas has surfaced (Pradeu 2016a). One common assumption that has been carried over with the consensus is that biological individuality is an intrinsic property of biological entities (Clarke 2016a). This tendency is reflected in the properties typically selected as criteria: what makes something an individual is quite often a property that biological entities themselves possess. I draw on Ellen Clarke’s (2013) evolutionary account of biological individuality, research about the evolution and maintenance of cooperation in the origins of multicellularity (Brockhurst et al. 2007; Gulli et al. 2019), and important parts of the consensus around biological individuality to argue against this trend. What makes something a biological individual is not always something about the entities in question. I show that there are environmental mechanisms capable of acting as individuation mechanisms in circumstances that resemble early transition stages, or in situations where individuality departs from paradigm cases. Therefore, biological individuality is not necessarily an intrinsic property.

Promoting cooperation through dynamic trustworthiness in spatial public goods games

The established imitation protocol mandates that participants observe and learn strategies from the most successful individuals in their vicinity. Previous studies have highlighted the critical role of this protocol in understanding the mechanisms that drive the evolution of cooperation. Nevertheless, individuals often exhibit a natural reluctance to adopt substantial changes rapidly. In this context, we integrate the concept of investment trustworthiness into the strategy updating process and explore the outcomes of dynamic beliefs through numerical simulations. Our results demonstrate that dynamic trustworthiness significantly supports cooperation. Cooperators impede the incursion of defectors by progressively reducing their willingness to invest, thus fostering the formation of cooperative clusters. Our findings suggest that while sensitivity to higher payoffs bolsters cooperation, a tempered response to negative payoffs is advantageous. Additionally, the initial distribution of willingness is pivotal for the success of this dynamic. Our study expands the repertoire of strategy update techniques in investigating the evolution of cooperation and offers profound insights into the complexities of human cooperative behaviour.

The Evolution of Cooperation in a Mobile Population on Random Networks: Network Topology Matters Only for Low-Degree Networks

The Evolution of Cooperation in a Mobile Population on Random Networks: Network Topology Matters Only for Low-Degree Networks

The nested structures of higher-order interactions promote the cooperation in complex social networks

As a powerful tool for exploring non-pairwise interactions, higher-order networks deepen our understanding of how cooperation emerges in complex systems. However, nearly all researches concerning the cooperative evolution on higher-order networks have neglected the prevalence of nested structures in real-world interactions — for instance, students are members of classes, which are components of grades, and these grades, in turn, are part of schools and so on. In this paper, we propose a general and scalable method to investigate the influence of nested structures in higher-order interactions on group cooperation. Specifically, by adjusting the proportion of lower-order nested relations (e.g., pairwise links) within higher-order structures, we find that higher-order interactions are more favorable to the cooperation if they comprise a rich nested dyadic structure. In addition, for the first time, we introduce higher-order network motifs to examine the contributions of various nested structures to cooperation. It is interesting to observe that the more uniform the nested structure, the more it promotes the cooperation. Our study offers a novel perspective to examine the evolution of cooperative behaviors in more complex realistic systems.

Effect of distribution of fines on evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods game

Abstract In the realm of public goods game, punishment, as a potent tool, stands out for fostering cooperation. While it effectively addresses the first-order free-rider problem, the associated costs can be substantial. Punishers incur expenses in imposing sanctions, while defectors face fines. Unfortunately, these monetary elements seemingly vanish into thin air, representing a loss to the system itself. However, by virtue of the redistribution of fines to cooperators and punishers, not only can we mitigate this loss, but the rewards for these cooperative individuals can be enhanced. Based upon this premise, this paper introduces a fine distribution mechanism to the traditional pool punishment model. Under identical parameter settings, by conducting a comparative experiment with the conventional punishment model, the paper aims to investigate the impact of fine distribution on the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods game. And the experimental results clearly demonstrate that, in instances where the punishment cost is prohibitively high, the cooperative strategies of the traditional pool punishment model may completely collapse. However, the model enriched with fine distribution manages to sustain a considerable number of cooperative strategies, thus highlighting its effectiveness in promoting and preserving cooperation, even in the face of substantial punishment cost.

Transition from dynamic equilibrium to unconstrained growth in cooperative systems

We introduce a model of cooperative evolution of agents (CE model) on any lattice or graph with agents that have only one opportunity to evolve or grow during their lifespan, then shrink or shrivel to die. The CE model cooperative rule: growing agents meet in the model space, and each agent involved is granted a bonus lifespan. Such synergy is easy to find in studies of social media, economics, epidemiology, etc.In the current work, the CE model uses the 2D square regular lattice cellular space and the simplest evolution rules. Numerical simulation shows that the bonus lifespan introduces a threshold into the CE model and the agent-occupied space shows chaotic behavior depending on the CE model parameters.The CE model of cooperative evolution is rather simple but opens up many possibilities for further research to understand in depth the effects of cooperation and synergy, and thus on real-life evolution.

Взаимодействие стран Британского содружества наций (Австралии, Канады, Новой Зеландии) по вопросу сохранения культурного наследия коренных народов

The article provides an overview of current topics in Russian and foreign research on indigenous issues, on the basis of which the interest and low study degree of collaboration of the British Commonwealth of Nations countries on the issue of preserving the indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage is shown. Using materials from original sources, the article highlights the history of relations among the native peoples and colonists of Australia, Canada and New Zealand in the 18th – 21st centuries. The historical events influenced the formation and underlie modern cooperation among countries on issues of preserving cultural heritage. The evolution and main areas of cooperation are shown, without which it is impossible to implement the concept of maintaining cultural diversity and cooperation on issues of preserving the aboriginal peoples’ material and non-material culture, as well as the formation of a new humanitarian direction in the foreign policy activities of these countries with the direct participation of the First nations.

Synergistic effects of global exclusion and mutation on replicator dynamics of public cooperation

Global exclusion represents an effective mechanism for the evolution of cooperation, even within an infinitely well-mixed population. However, it remains unknown how global exclusion performs when faced with the evolutionary challenges posed by both defection and neutral mutation in the public goods game. Here, we report that global exclusion is able to resist or even have a positive interplay with unbiased mutations in the replicator dynamics of public cooperation. In the limit of an infinite population size, we find that the replicator-mutation dynamics can result in either a global stable coexistence or two local stable coexistences, whose attraction basins are separated by an unstable fixed point, between global exclusion and defection, as well as several types of bifurcations. Interestingly, there is an optimal mutation rate that leads to the largest enhancement of the emergent level for cooperation by global exclusion when the exclusion cost is reasonably low. Our results thus indicate that random exploration of strategies by mutation can enhance the beneficial effects of global exclusion on the evolution of public cooperation.

Evaluation and threshold-based mutual supervision promotes the evolution of cooperation on interdependent networks

Inspired by the pivotal role of supervision mechanisms in promoting and maintaining cooperative behavior in human society, we propose a mutual supervision mechanism to explore the evolution of cooperation on an interdependent network. The mechanism adjusts the game type of supervised nodes when their evaluation value falls below a critical threshold. Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the mutual supervision mechanism effectively encourages the emergence of cooperative strategies on interdependent networks. The experimental results show a direct positive linkage between the number of supervised nodes and the fraction of cooperation. In detail, the effect of the sucker's payoff on cooperation is more noticeable when most of the nodes are supervised by the mechanism. However, a higher sucker's payoff discourages cooperation when there are few supervised nodes. Furthermore, the stability of cooperation is closely related to a stricter supervision threshold. Conversely, if the supervision threshold is too lenient, previously stable cooperation levels will suddenly collapse.

Non-Debye to Debye spectral shift in solid solutions of orientationally disordered crystals.

Debye relaxation is a simple and unique physical mechanism by which a macroscopic orientational polarization decays monoexponentially with time. However, the very existence of the Debye process in complex systems such as water, aqueous solutions, and monohydroxyl alcohols, among others, is puzzling to date and their microscopic origin is still ambiguously explained. In order to shed light on some of these aspects, orientational dynamics of an orientationally disordered dipolar crystal with an identically structured nonpolar matrix has been studied in the form of solid solutions. A crossover from non-Debye to Debye-type spectral behavior has been observed with increasing concentration of the nonpolar matrix in the solid solutions. Analysis of the dynamic response shows that the evolution of cooperativity and spatial heterogeneity with concentration of nonpolar matrix is responsible for the observed trends. The results not only authenticate a possible mechanism of the Debye process as originating from localized orientational fluctuations due to molecular dipoles but also shed light on the evolution of non-Debye characteristics in these systems.

Evolution of cooperation in R&D alliance portfolios considering aspirations

Evolution of cooperation in R&D alliance portfolios considering aspirations

Evolution game simulation study on Asia–Europe grain trade cooperation network

There has unavoidably been a problem for international grain cooperation in the Asia–Europe region as a result of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict. Analysis of the impact of Russian–Ukrainian conflict on the evolution of grain trade cooperation, identifying key influencing factors and formulating corresponding measures are of practical value for safeguarding grain security in the Asia–Europe region. In this paper, a grain trade network is constructed according to grain trade data from the Asian–European grain trade cooperation countries. A grain trade network game (GTNG) model of grain trade cooperation is established in order to investigate the elements that influence trade cooperation. The reciprocal preference is introduced. Through simulation experiments, the effects of cooperation costs, neighboring countries’ incentives, and punitive pressures, the degree of goodwill perception, the types of game, and the proportion of initial cooperators on trade cooperation are examined. This study may give useful policy recommendations for promoting Asia–Europe grain trade cooperation under the influence of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict.

Evolutionary dynamics of memory-one extortion and generosity on scale-free simplices

Both extortionate and generous strategies within the framework of zero-determinant (ZD) strategy can be linearly related to the opponent's payoffs. Here we explore their evolutionary performances for both iterated two-player and multi-player games. We mainly investigate two scenarios on simplicial complexes: one is the evolutionary scenario with cooperation (C), defection (D) and extortion (E), the other is the cooperation, defection and generosity (G). We find that both extortion and generosity can help cooperators resist the invasion of defectors. Intriguingly, the extortioner, who always enforces higher payoff than co-players, is more beneficial to promote cooperation than generosity. Compared with kindness and indulgence, being strict with the co-players can actually maintain cooperative behaviors in the long run. Simulations on the simplicial complexes revel that the catalytic effect of extortion on the evolution of cooperation even be more obvious in iterated multi-player social dilemmas than the two-player case, hence cooperation becomes more popular when the networks include more 2-simplex interactions. Our results can help to illustrate the role of higher-order interaction in the evolution of altruistic behaviors.

Evolution of reciprocity with limited payoff memory.

Direct reciprocity is a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation in repeated social interactions. According to the literature, individuals naturally learn to adopt conditionally cooperative strategies if they have multiple encounters with their partner. Corresponding models have greatly facilitated our understanding of cooperation, yet they often make strong assumptions on how individuals remember and process payoff information. For example, when strategies are updated through social learning, it is commonly assumed that individuals compare their average payoffs. This would require them to compute (or remember) their payoffs against everyone else in the population. To understand how more realistic constraints influence direct reciprocity, we consider the evolution of conditional behaviours when individuals learn based on more recent experiences. Even in the most extreme case that they only take into account their very last interaction, we find that cooperation can still evolve. However, such individuals adopt less generous strategies, and they cooperate less often than in the classical setup with average payoffs. Interestingly, once individuals remember the payoffs of two or three recent interactions, cooperation rates quickly approach the classical limit. These findings contribute to a literature that explores which kind of cognitive capabilities are required for reciprocal cooperation. While our results suggest that some rudimentary form of payoff memory is necessary, it suffices to remember a few interactions.

Reputation-Based Evidential Reasoning Approach Improves Cooperative Evolution of Supply Chain Network Under Disruption Risk

Reputation-Based Evidential Reasoning Approach Improves Cooperative Evolution of Supply Chain Network Under Disruption Risk

Freedom of choice disrupts cyclic dominance but maintains cooperation in voluntary prisoner’s dilemma game

Cyclic dominance has become a pivotal factor in sustaining cooperation within structured populations. However, this comprehension has predominantly revolved around node dynamics, where agents are constrained to adopt a uniform strategy with all neighbors. This constraint restricts agents’ capabilities to respond differently to various neighbors. In this study, we explore the under-emphasized role of freedom of choice in spatial games, applying a voluntary prisoner’s dilemma model across diverse network structures. We differentiate between ‘node agents,’ who adhere to a consistent strategy with all neighbors, and ‘link agents,’ who adjust their strategies based on specific interactions, influenced by direct and indirect emotional factors. Direct emotion governs the strategy between two interacting agents, while indirect emotion encompasses the impact of third-party influences on strategic decisions. Our Monte Carlo simulations reveal that freedom of choices disrupts cyclic dominance establishment – particularly as the proportion of link agents grows – and influences the evolution of cooperation in nuanced ways. Specifically, a minor preference for upstream strategy delivery markedly promotes cooperation, while a strong preference diminishes it. Our findings suggest that the importance of cyclic dominance in promoting cooperation may have been overestimated, revealing that cooperation can flourish with varied strategies even in the absence of strong cyclic dominance.

Individual heterogeneity promotes the evolution of cooperation on temporary networks

Individual heterogeneity promotes the evolution of cooperation on temporary networks

AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES IN THE ROMANIAN AGRI FOOD SYSTEM

In the recent years, agricultural markets and supply chains have been quite strongly affected, in an unprecedented geopolitical and economic context, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, climate change and the challenges of implementing the European Green Deal. Under these conditions, food has once again emerged as a central element of life, alongside health, and healthy eating for all depends more on social and economic conditions than on the technical aspects of food production and processing. Thus, the need to rethink and revalue local productions, supply chains and the links established at territorial level, in order to increase the resilience of agri-food systems and ensure their sustainable development, emerged. The cooperative model is considered to be suitable to address the challenges generated by transitions to sustainability, and agricultural cooperatives can significantly contribute to increasing the resilience of agri-food systems. Many agricultural cooperatives, from different countries of the world, have managed to adapt to the new situation, proving that they are important entities in the agri-food system. In this paper, we tried to identify some particularities regarding the changes in the cooperative system in Romania, in recent years, as a reaction to the challenges that the agri-food system has to face. For this purpose, we analysed the evolution of agricultural cooperatives before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and estimated the market share in different areas of activity with significant turnover, the evolution of some economic indicators, as well as their dynamics by counties and regions in an attempt to identify their development trends.

Coordination in social learning: expanding the narrative on the evolution of social norms

A shared narrative in the literature on the evolution of cooperation maintains that social learning evolves early to allow for the transmission of cumulative culture. Social norms, whilst present at the outset, only rise to prominence later on, mainly to stabilise cooperation against the threat of defection. In contrast, I argue that once we consider insights from social epistemology, an expansion of this narrative presents itself: An interesting kind of social norm — an epistemic coordination norm — was operative in early and important instances of specialised social learning. I show how there’s a need for such norms in two key social learning strategies and explain how this need is constituted. In assessor-teaching (e.g. Castro et al., 2019b, 2021), epistemic coordination norms allow agents to coordinate around the content of social learning, i.e., what is to be known and how this is to be done. These norms also allow agents to coordinate around the form of cultural learning in what’s sometimes called strategic social learning (Laland, 2004; Hoppitt & Laland, 2013; Heyes, 2018, Chap. 5) and elsewhere. Broadly speaking, this concerns how cultural learning is organised within the social group. The upshot is that the evolution of social learning and social norms are intertwined in important and underappreciated ways from early on. The above matters as it informs our views about the evolution of social norms more generally. Truly social norms emerged to coordinate a plurality of complex behaviours and interactions, amongst them specialised social learning. I substantiate this view by contrasting it with Jonathan Birch’s views on the evolution of norms. What results is a general but cohesive narrative on the early evolution of social norms.

Memory–based adaptive interaction willingness enhances cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma

As an important part of the evolution of cooperation, interaction diversity has attracted extensive attention. Traditional studies mainly focus exclusively on either time or space, and the comprehensive impact of these two dimensions on the evolution of cooperation deserves further exploration. In this paper, the interaction willingness is abstracted as the network weight, and an adaptive mechanism for interaction willingness based on the delay effect is proposed by combining the network weight and accumulated payoff. Specifically, individuals adjust their willingness to participate in the game with a delay, considering the change in accumulated payoffs within a certain period, rather than the change in immediate payoffs. The degree of delay is reflected in the length of individuals' memory of historical payoffs. Simulation results deviate from the intuition that more information facilitates cooperation, and in certain modes of interaction willingness adjustment, the correlation between cooperation level and memory–length is non–monotonic. Long–memory is conducive to promoting cooperation under the condition of a relatively large range adjustment of interaction willingness. Conversely, with a narrow adjustment range of interaction willingness, cooperation can be effectively established with short–memory. These results hold substantial implications for both theory and practice, as slight adjustment often corresponds to low loss and high operability. In addition, the underlying mechanism is furthermore explored, revealing that the ‘isolation zones’ composed of individuals with low interaction willingness play an important role in promoting cooperation.