Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Inselstrasse 22, D-04103, Leipzig, Germany.
Commun Biol. 2021 Nov 29;4(1):1340. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02865-w.
Public goods are often subject to heterogeneous costs, such as the necessary costs to maintain the public goods infrastructure. However, the extent to which heterogeneity in participation cost can affect groups' ability to provide public goods is unclear. Here, by introducing a mathematical model, I show that when individuals face a costly institution and a free institution to perform a collective action task, the existence of a participation cost promotes cooperation in the costly institution. Despite paying for a participation cost, costly cooperators, who join the costly institution and cooperate, can outperform defectors who predominantly join a free institution. This promotes cooperation in the costly institution and can facilitate the evolution of cooperation in the free institution. For small profitability of the collective action, cooperation in a costly institution but not the free institution evolves. However, individuals are doomed to a winnerless red queen dynamics in which cooperators are unable to suppress defection. For large profitabilities, cooperation in both the costly and the free institution evolves. In this regime, cooperators with different game preferences complement each other to efficiently suppress defection in a black queen dynamic.
公共物品通常会产生异质成本，例如维护公共物品基础设施所需的成本。然而，参与成本的异质性在何种程度上会影响群体提供公共物品的能力尚不清楚。在这里，通过引入一个数学模型，我表明，当个人面临一个有成本的机构和一个免费的机构来执行集体行动任务时，参与成本的存在会促进有成本的机构中的合作。尽管需要支付参与成本，但加入有成本机构并合作的有成本合作者可以胜过主要加入免费机构的叛徒。这促进了有成本机构中的合作，并有助于免费机构中合作的演变。对于集体行动的小盈利性，有成本机构中的合作但不是免费机构中的合作会进化。然而，个人注定会陷入一个没有赢家的红皇后动态，在这种动态中，合作者无法抑制背叛。对于大的盈利性，有成本和免费机构都会进化。在这种情况下，具有不同博弈偏好的合作者相互补充，以有效地抑制黑皇后动态中的背叛。
