Killingback Timothy, Bieri Jonas, Flatt Thomas
College of William and Mary, Department of Mathematics, Williamsburg, VA 23187, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2006 Jun 22;273(1593):1477-81. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3476.
Public goods are the key features of all human societies and are also important in many animal societies. Collaborative hunting and collective defence are but two examples of public goods that have played a crucial role in the development of human societies and still play an important role in many animal societies. Public goods allow societies composed largely of cooperators to outperform societies composed mainly of non-cooperators. However, public goods also provide an incentive for individuals to be selfish by benefiting from the public good without contributing to it. This is the essential paradox of cooperation-known variously as the Tragedy of the Commons, Multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma or Social Dilemma. Here, we show that a new model for evolution in group-structured populations provides a simple and effective mechanism for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in such a social dilemma. This model does not depend on kin selection, direct or indirect reciprocity, punishment, optional participation or trait-group selection. Since this mechanism depends only on population dynamics and requires no cognitive abilities on the part of the agents concerned, it potentially applies to organisms at all levels of complexity.
公共物品是所有人类社会的关键特征，在许多动物社会中也很重要。合作狩猎和集体防御只是公共物品的两个例子，它们在人类社会发展中发挥了关键作用，并且在许多动物社会中仍然发挥着重要作用。公共物品使主要由合作者组成的社会比主要由非合作者组成的社会表现更优。然而，公共物品也会促使个体产生自私行为，即不为此做出贡献却从公共物品中获益。这就是合作的基本悖论，有多种称谓，如公地悲剧、多人囚徒困境或社会困境。在此，我们表明，一种用于群体结构种群进化的新模型为此类社会困境中合作的出现和维持提供了一种简单有效的机制。该模型不依赖亲缘选择、直接或间接互惠、惩罚、选择性参与或特质群体选择。由于这种机制仅取决于种群动态，且相关主体无需认知能力，它可能适用于所有复杂程度的生物体。
