Resource abundance promotes the evolution of public goods cooperation

Abstract

Understanding the evolution of cooperation as part of an evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) is a difficult problem that has been the focus of much work. The associated costs of cooperation may lower the fitness of an organism below that of its non-cooperating counterpart, allowing the more fit organism to persist and outcompete the cooperator. Insight into these behaviors can help provide a better understanding of many aspects of the natural world, as well as provide future avenues for fighting disease.In this study, we use digital evolution to examine how the abundance of a required resource affects the cooperative production of a public good in an adverse environment. Evolutionary computation is an excellent tool for examining these problems, as it offers researchers complete access to organisms and total control over their environment. We find that stable cooperation can occur in otherwise competitive environments at discrete levels corresponding to the availability of a required resource. When resource levels are low, organisms focus solely on competitive behaviors. However, once resource levels cross a critical threshold, cooperation persists in populations. Further, this cooperation occurs in patches, where it is most likely to benefit relatives. Finally, we find that in some cases this cooperative behavior allows organisms to increase their competitive abilities as well.

Surviving the tragedy of commons: Emergence of altruism in a population of evolving autonomous agents

“…Waibel et al (2009) discusses the ability to evolve altruism in team of homogeneous robots with group selection in a setup similar to the public good dilemma. Facing the same environmental conditions, Connelly et al (2010) experimentally show that altruism naturally emerges as long as resources is widely available.…”

“…The emergence of altruism under specific condition have also been studied in virtual or real environments, in particular with respect to the public good dilemma (Connelly et al, 2010;Waibel et al, 2009) and to the tragedy of commons (Spector et al, 2004;Scogings and Hawick, 2008), with similar concerns for different selection schemes. Waibel et al (2009) discusses the ability to evolve altruism in team of homogeneous robots with group selection in a setup similar to the public good dilemma.…”