Perc Matjaz, Szolnoki Attila
Department of Physics, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Koroska cesta 160, Maribor, Slovenia.
Biosystems. 2010 Feb;99(2):109-25. doi: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2009.10.003. Epub 2009 Oct 29.
Prevalence of cooperation within groups of selfish individuals is puzzling in that it contradicts with the basic premise of natural selection. Favoring players with higher fitness, the latter is key for understanding the challenges faced by cooperators when competing with defectors. Evolutionary game theory provides a competent theoretical framework for addressing the subtleties of cooperation in such situations, which are known as social dilemmas. Recent advances point towards the fact that the evolution of strategies alone may be insufficient to fully exploit the benefits offered by cooperative behavior. Indeed, while spatial structure and heterogeneity, for example, have been recognized as potent promoters of cooperation, coevolutionary rules can extend the potentials of such entities further, and even more importantly, lead to the understanding of their emergence. The introduction of coevolutionary rules to evolutionary games implies, that besides the evolution of strategies, another property may simultaneously be subject to evolution as well. Coevolutionary rules may affect the interaction network, the reproduction capability of players, their reputation, mobility or age. Here we review recent works on evolutionary games incorporating coevolutionary rules, as well as give a didactic description of potential pitfalls and misconceptions associated with the subject. In addition, we briefly outline directions for future research that we feel are promising, thereby particularly focusing on dynamical effects of coevolutionary rules on the evolution of cooperation, which are still widely open to research and thus hold promise of exciting new discoveries.
自私个体群体中的合作现象令人费解，因为它与自然选择的基本前提相矛盾。自然选择青睐具有更高适应性的个体，这对于理解合作者在与背叛者竞争时所面临的挑战至关重要。进化博弈论为解决此类被称为社会困境的合作微妙之处提供了一个有力的理论框架。最近的进展表明，仅策略的进化可能不足以充分利用合作行为带来的好处。事实上，虽然空间结构和异质性等因素已被认为是合作的有力促进因素，但共同进化规则可以进一步扩展这些因素的潜力，更重要的是，有助于理解它们的出现。将共同进化规则引入进化博弈意味着，除了策略的进化外，另一个属性也可能同时发生进化。共同进化规则可能会影响互动网络、参与者的繁殖能力、声誉、流动性或年龄。在这里，我们回顾了关于纳入共同进化规则的进化博弈的近期研究，并对与该主题相关的潜在陷阱和误解进行了讲解。此外，我们简要概述了我们认为有前景的未来研究方向，特别关注共同进化规则对合作进化的动态影响，这方面仍有广泛的研究空间，有望带来令人兴奋的新发现。
