Cooperation in changing environments: Irreversibility in the transition to cooperation in networks

Abstract

In the framework of the evolutionary dynamics of the Prisoner's Dilemma game on complex networks, we investigate the possibility that the average level of cooperation shows hysteresis under quasi-static variations of a model parameter (the "temptation to defect"). Under the "discrete replicator" strategy updating rule, for both Erdos-Renyi and Barabasi-Albert graphs we observe cooperation hysteresis cycles provided one reaches tipping point values of the parameter; otherwise, perfect reversibility is obtained. The selective fixation of cooperation at certain nodes and its organization in cooperator clusters, that are surrounded by fluctuating strategists, allows the rationalization of the "lagging behind" behavior observed.

6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Statistical physics of social dynamics
• Evolutionary games on graphs
• Critical phenomena in complex networks
• Evolutionary dynamics of group interactions on structured populations: A review
• Evolutionary game theory: Temporal and spatial effects beyond replicator dynamics
• Dynamical Organization of Cooperation in Complex Topologies
• Towards effective payoffs in the prisoner's dilemma game on scale-free networks
• Robustness of Cooperation in the Evolutionary Prisoner's Dilemma on Complex Networks
• Social Network Reciprocity as a Phase Transition in Evolutionary Cooperation

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Environmental feedback drives cooperation in spatial social dilemmas
• Cooperation and competition between pair and multi-player social games in spatial populations
• Modeling the effects of environmental and perceptual uncertainty using deterministic reinforcement learning dynamics with partial observability
• Environment driven oscillation in an off-lattice May--Leonard model
• Cooperation in costly-access environments