How mutation alters the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation on networks

Abstract

Cooperation is ubiquitous at every level of living organisms. It is known that spatial (network) structure is a viable mechanism for cooperation to evolve. A recently proposed numerical metric, average gradient of selection (AGoS), a useful tool for interpreting and visualizing evolutionary dynamics on networks, allows simulation results to be visualized on a one-dimensional phase space. However, stochastic mutation of strategies was not considered in the analysis of AGoS. Here we extend AGoS so that it can analyze the evolution of cooperation where mutation may alter strategies of individuals on networks. We show that our extended AGoS correctly visualizes the final states of cooperation with mutation in the individual-based simulations. Our analyses revealed that mutation always has a negative effect on the evolution of cooperation regardless of the payoff functions, fraction of cooperators, and network structures. Moreover, we found that scale-free networks are the most vulnerable to mutation and thus the dynamics of cooperation are altered from bistability to coexistence on those networks, undergoing an imperfect pitchfork bifurcation.

arXiv comment15 pages, 7 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1706.03013

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Mutation mitigates finite-size effects in spatial evolutionary games
• Roles of mutation rate and co-existence of multiple strategy updating rules in evolutionary prisoner's dilemma games
• Phase transitions in dependence of apex predator decaying ratio in a cyclic dominant system
• Evolutionary Games on Networks: Phase Transition, Quasi-equilibrium, and Mathematical Principles