Matthew Effect of the Random Drift on the Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract EN

The effect of the random drift on the evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma game is studied on regular lattices.

A new evolutionary rule is proposed, which stochastically combines the deterministic rule with the random drift rule.

It is found that the random drift has an effect on the evolutionary dynamics depending on the values of the temptation-to-defect b and the probability p of the random drift.

When the random drift occurs with low probabilities, which interests us more, a phenomenon of the Matthew effect on the evolution of cooperation is found.

Explanations of this phenomenon are deduced through the analysis on the dynamics and pattern formations of the PDG system.