Diversity of reproduction time scale promotes cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma games

TL;DR

This paper investigates how varying reproduction timescales and their diversity influence cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma games, revealing an optimal intermediate timescale for promoting cooperation.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that diversity in reproduction timescales enhances cooperation, highlighting the importance of timescale heterogeneity in evolutionary game dynamics.

Findings

Intermediate reproduction timescales maximize cooperation.

Both very fast and very slow reproduction hinder cooperation.

Diversity in reproduction timescales promotes cooperative behavior.

Abstract

We study an evolutionary spatial prisoner's dilemma game where the fitness of the players is determined by both the payoffs from the current interaction and their history. We consider the situation where the selection timescale is slower than the interaction timescale. This is done by implementing probabilistic reproduction on an individual level. We observe that both too fast and too slow reproduction rates hamper the emergence of cooperation. In other words, there exists an intermediate selection timescale that maximizes cooperation. Another factor we find to promote cooperation is a diversity of reproduction timescales.