Dynamics of N-person snowdrift games in structured populations

In many real-life situations, the completion of a task by a group toward achieving a common goal requires the cooperation of at least some of its members, who share the required workload. Such cases are conveniently modeled by the N-person snowdrift game, an example of a Public Goods Game. Here we study how an underlying network of contacts affects the evolutionary dynamics of collective action modeled in terms of such a Public Goods Game. We analyze the impact of different types of networks in the global, population-wide dynamics of cooperators and defectors. We show that homogeneous social structures enhance the chances of coordinating toward stable levels of cooperation, while heterogeneous network structures create multiple internal equilibria, departing significantly from the reference scenario of a well-mixed, structureless population. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.