Binary birth-death dynamics and the expansion of cooperation by means of self-organized growth

¹ Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences - P.O. Box 49, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary
² Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor - Koroška cesta 160, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia
³ Information Systems Institute, HEC, University of Lausanne - CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Received: 25 January 2014
Accepted: 14 February 2014

Abstract

Natural selection favors the more successful individuals. This is the elementary premise that pervades common models of evolution. Under extreme conditions, however, the process may no longer be probabilistic. Those that meet certain conditions survive and may reproduce while others perish. By introducing the corresponding binary birth-death dynamics to spatial evolutionary games, we observe solutions that are fundamentally different from those reported previously based on imitation dynamics. Social dilemmas transform to collective enterprises, where the availability of free expansion ranges and limited exploitation possibilities dictates self-organized growth. Strategies that dominate are those that are collectively most apt in meeting the survival threshold, rather than those who succeed in exploiting others for unfair benefits. Revisiting Darwinian principles with the focus on survival rather than imitation thus reveals the most counterintuitive ways of reconciling cooperation with competition.