Fast cheater migration stabilizes coexistence in a public goods dilemma on networks

TL;DR

This paper models how rapid migration of cheaters in a networked public goods game can stabilize cooperation, preventing collapse and leading to complex dynamic behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a piecewise-smooth ODE model coupling within-nest dynamics and between-nest migration, revealing how cheater mobility influences system stability.

Findings

Fast cheater migration stabilizes coexistence.

Network stability is lost via Hopf and torus bifurcations.

Results align with observed behaviors in ant and bee colonies.

Abstract

Through the lens of game theory, cooperation is frequently considered an unsustainable strategy: if an entire population is cooperating, each indi- vidual can increase its overall fitness by choosing not to cooperate, thereby still receiving all the benefit of its cooperating neighbors while no longer expending its own energy. Observable cooperation in naturally-occurring public goods games is consequently of great interest, as such systems offer insight into both the emergence and sustainability of cooperation. Here we consider a population that obeys a public goods game on a network of discrete regions (that we call nests), between any two of which individuals are free to migrate. We construct a system of piecewise-smooth ordinary differential equations that couple the within-nest population dynamics and the between-nest migratory dynamics. Through a combination of analytical and numerical methods, we show that if the workers within the population migrate sufficiently fast relative to the cheaters, the network loses stability first through a Hopf bifurcation, then a torus bifurcation, after which one or more nests collapse. Our results indicate that fast moving cheaters can act to stabilize worker-cheater coexistence within network that would otherwise collapse. We end with a comparison of our results with the dynamics observed in colonies of the ant species Pristomyrmex punctatus and in those of the Cape honeybee Apis mellifera capensis, and argue that they qualitatively agree.