Hostility prevents the tragedy of the commons in metapopulation with asymmetric migration: A lesson from queenless ants

TL;DR

This study uses an evolutionary game-theoretic model to show that hostility among colonies with asymmetric migration prevents the tragedy of the commons in ant populations, highlighting a mechanism that could apply broadly to metapopulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analytical model demonstrating how territorial hostility in asymmetric migration scenarios averts cooperation collapse in metapopulations.

Findings

Hostility prevents the tragedy of the commons in ant colonies.

Asymmetric migration rates influence cooperative behavior.

Model validated with empirical data from Pristomyrmex punctatus.

Abstract

A colony of the queenless ant species, \emph{Pristomyrmex punctatus}, can broadly be seen as consisting of small-body sized worker ants and relatively larger body-sized cheater ants. Hence, in the presence of inter-colony migration, a set of constituent colonies act as a metapopulation exclusively composed of cooperators and defectors. Such a set-up facilitates an evolutionary game-theoretic replication-selection model of population dynamics of the ants in a metapopulation. Using the model, we analytically probe the effects of territoriality induced hostility. Such hostility in the ant-metapopulation proves to be crucial in preventing the tragedy of the commons, specifically, the workforce, a social good formed by cooperation. This mechanism applies to any metapopulation -- not necessarily the ants -- composed of cooperators and defectors where inter-population migration occurs asymmetrically, i.e., cooperators and defectors migrate at different rates. Furthermore, our model validates that there is evolutionary benefit behind the queenless ants' behavior of showing more hostility towards the immigrants from nearby colonies than those from the far-off ones. In order to calibrate our model's parameters, we have extensively used the data available on the queenless ant species, \emph{Pristomyrmex punctatus}