Stochasticity, Selection, and the Evolution of Cooperation in a Two-Level Moran Model of the Snowdrift Game

Stochasticity, Selection, and the Evolution of Cooperation in a Two-Level Moran Model of the Snowdrift Game

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The Snowdrift Game, also known lava me 3 smart guitar as the Hawk-Dove Game, is a social dilemma in which an individual can participate (cooperate) or not (defect) in producing a public good.It is relevant to a number of collective action problems in biology.In a population of individuals playing this game, traditional evolutionary models, in which the dynamics are continuous and deterministic, predict a stable, interior equilibrium frequency of cooperators.

Here, we examine how finite population size and multilevel selection affect the evolution of cooperation in this game using a two-level Moran process, which involves discrete, stochastic dynamics.Our analysis 70 x 70 tablecloth has two main results.First, we find that multilevel selection in this model can yield significantly higher levels of cooperation than one finds in traditional models.

Second, we identify a threshold effect for the payoff matrix in the Snowdrift Game, such that below (above) a determinate cost-to-benefit ratio, cooperation will almost surely fix (go extinct) in the population.This second result calls into question the explanatory reach of traditional continuous models and suggests a possible alternative explanation for high levels of cooperative behavior in nature.