Migration based on environment comparison promotes cooperation in evolutionary games

Human beings and natural creatures often migrate in search of better environments. When both local and global environments can be perceived by individuals, they may determine whether to migrate or not based on the comparison. If the individuals realize the local environments are worse than the global ones, they are more likely to leave their original place. Otherwise, they may choose to stay still. Considering these, we study the evolutionary games in a dynamically changing population on a square lattice, in which the players migrate based on the comparison between local and global environments. The simulation results show that cooperation can be significantly promoted. By examining the strategy patterns during the evolution, we find there exist two evolutionary stages that account for the enhancement of cooperation. One is the clustering of cooperators, in which cooperator clusters get strengthened by slow migration of cooperators and fast migration of defectors. The other is the coalescence of cooperator clusters, which induces further increment of the cooperation level. Besides, we investigate the effects of two different types of noises on cooperation, which are introduced in migration and in strategy imitation, respectively. The results reveal that cooperation could be enhanced by low migration noise whereas high strategy-adoption noise.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigates the promotion of cooperation in a population that migrates based on the comparison between local and global environments. The results show that cooperation can be significantly enhanced through the clustering of cooperators and the coalescence of cooperator clusters.