Influence of vertex weight on cooperative behavior in a spatial snowdrift game

In this paper the vertex weight is introduced into a snowdrift game to study the evolution of cooperative behavior. Compared with the snowdrift game in a traditional square lattice without any weight, cooperation can be promoted under three types of weight distribution: uniform, exponential and power-law distribution. For an intermediate cost-to-benefit ratio (r), in particular, the facilitation effect of cooperation is obvious. Moreover, the influence of undulation amplitude of weight distribution and the noise strength of strategy selection on cooperative behavior are also investigated. They exhibit a nontrivial phenomenon as a function of r. The results are helpful in analyzing and understanding the emergence of collective cooperation that is found widely in many natural and social systems.