Joint evolution of altruistic cooperation and dispersal in a metapopulation of small local populations

Parvinen, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9125-6041 (2013). Joint evolution of altruistic cooperation and dispersal in a metapopulation of small local populations. Theoretical Population Biology 12-19. 10.1016/j.tpb.2013.01.003.

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

We investigate the joint evolution of public goods cooperation and dispersal in a metapopulation model with small local populations. Altruistic cooperation can evolve due to assortment and kin selection, and dispersal can evolve because of demographic stochasticity, catastrophes and kin selection. Metapopulation structures resulting in assortment have been shown to make selection for cooperation possible. But how does dispersal affect cooperation and vice versa, when both are allowed to evolve as continuous traits? We found four qualitatively different evolutionary outcomes. (1) Monomorphic evolution to full defection with positive dispersal. (2) Monomorphic evolution to an evolutionarily stable state with positive cooperation and dispersal. In this case, parameter changes selecting for increased cooperation typically also select for increased dispersal. (3) Evolutionary branching can result in the evolutionarily stable coexistence of defectors and cooperators. Although defectors could be expected to disperse more than cooperators, here we show that also the opposite case is possible: Defectors tend to disperse less than cooperators when the total amount of cooperation in the dimorphic population is low enough. (4) Selection for too low cooperation can cause the extinction of the evolving population. For moderate catastrophe rates dispersal needs to be initially very frequent for evolutionary suicide to occur. Although selection for less dispersal in principle could prevent such evolutionary suicide, in most cases this rescuing effect is not sufficient, because selection in the cooperation trait is typically much stronger. If the catastrophe rate is large enough, a part of the boundary of viability can be evolutionarily attracting with respect to both strategy components, in which case evolutionary suicide is expected from all initial conditions.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Adaptive dynamics; Altruism; Cooperation; Dispersal; Spatial heterogeneity; Evolutionary suicide
Research Programs: Evolution and Ecology (EEP)
Bibliographic Reference: Theoretical Population Biology; 85:12-19 (May 2013) (Published online 18 January 2013)
Depositing User: IIASA Import
Date Deposited: 15 Jan 2016 08:49
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2021 17:23
URI: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/10526

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item