Close spatial arrangement of mutants favors and disfavors fixation.

ABSTRACT: Cooperation is ubiquitous across all levels of biological systems ranging from microbial communities to human societies. It, however, seemingly contradicts the evolutionary theory, since cooperators are exploited by free-riders and thus are disfavored by natural selection. Many studies based on evolutionary game theory have tried to solve the puzzle and figure out the reason why cooperation exists and how it emerges. Network reciprocity is one of the mechanisms to promote cooperation, where nodes refer to individuals and links refer to social relationships. The spatial arrangement of mutant individuals, which refers to the clustering of mutants, plays a key role in network reciprocity. Besides, many other mechanisms supporting cooperation suggest that the clustering of mutants plays an imp

SUBMITTER: Xiao Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6746358 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature