2017

The 6th International Conference o

Complex Networks and Their Applica
Replicator Equation and The Evolution of Cooperation on
November 29 - December 01
Lyon, France
Regular Communities

PROGRAM

Daniele Cassese

University of Namur
Replicator Equation

The replicator equation [Taylor and Jonker 1978] in randomly mixed

population with n species (strategies)

xi = xi (fi ) for i n (1)

xi is the fraction of population playing strategy i

P
fi = jn xj ij its fitness
P
= in xi fi average fitness of population

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Replicator Equation on Regular Graphs

[Ohtsuki and Nowak, 2006] prove that on Regular Random Graph the RE
dynamics follows

" #
X
xi = xi xj (ij + bij ) (2)
jn

and bij = f (k, ) is a function of the degree and the payoff matrix,
depending on the updating mechanism

So the RE on RRG is just the mean field RE with transformed payoff matrix!!!

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Pair Approximation

Their result uses Pair Approximation [Masuda, 1992], moment closure

approximation that captures spatiality by following the evolution of
densities of edges, assuming that there is no correlation between
next-nearest neighbours
it works well on infinitely large graphs with negligible clustering
Master Equation p2 = f (p2 , p3 , . . . )
pij pjk
moment closure pijk = pj

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Relaxing the regularity constraint

To extend the RE beyond RG, let us consider a family of graphs where

nodes have different degrees, but tend to be clustered in degree-regular
communities
On such graphs the replicator dynamics in each regular community can be
described by the REoRG above
The simplest way to aggregate the dynamics on the entire graph is to
average community-level REoRG across communities.

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RE on Regular Community Graph

Consider a family of connected graphs such that nodes are partitioned in

regular communities such that

Inside a regular community every node has the same degree

Nodes inside a community of degree k can be divided in two groups:
Interior nodes if every one of their neighbours has degree k
Frontier nodes if at least one of their neighbours has degree k 0 6= k

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Replicator Equation on RCG

The RE on Regular Communities Graphs is

XX
xi = xi (fi + xj bij (k)P[Gk ]) ) (3)
k3 j

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Cooperate or Defect?

Lets use RERCG to study cooperation in classical prisoner dilemma

C D
C bc c
D b 0

Defection is a Nash Equilibrium and an ESS (if the population is well

mixed)

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Cooperate or Defect?

On a Regular Community Network we can have both that Cooperation prevails

(xC = 1 is an equilibrium) or that Cooperators and Defector coexist in
equilibrium under Death-Birth and Imitation updating

b
P
Cooperation under DB prevails if c
> k kP[Gk ]
b
P
Cooperation under DB prevails if c
> k (k + 2)P[Gk ]

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Cooperate or Defect?

Cooperation under DB may also show mixed equilibria, in which both

cooperators and defectors coexist.

C D
C 5 0
D 8 1

Figure 1: Average degree vs Figure 2: Simplex of Communities P:

Cooperators in equilibrium k = 9, k = 4, k = 3
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Create Graphs with Regular Communities

A GRC with negligible clustering can be created with a modification of the

pairing model for RRG
P
1. Create a set of [n di P(di )di ] points.
2. Divide them in n buckets in the following way:
2.1 Take [nP(di )] points and put them in [nP(di )] different buckets.
2.2 Add di 1 points to each of these buckets.
2.3 Repeat the same procedure for all the other di . In this way for each di there
will be [nP(di )] buckets with di points.
3. Pick a random point, say it is in a bucket with di points.
4. Join it with probability r to a random point among those in one of the
[nbP(di )] buckets with di points, and with probability 1 r to any of the
other points at random. Continue until a perfect matching is reached.
5. Collapse the points, so that each bucket maps onto a single vertex of the
original graph. Retain all edges between points as the edges of the
corresponding vertices.
6. Check if the corresponding graph is simple.

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Cooperators prefer Complex Networks!

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Thank You!!!

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