Diffusion-induced instabilities promote cooperation in eco-evolutionary networks
Abstract
Understanding how cooperation persists despite the advantage of selfish behavior remains a central challenge in evolutionary dynamics. Classical models of public goods dilemmas predict dominance of defectors, yet natural and social systems often sustain cooperation. We study an eco-evolutionary public goods game on complex networks where cooperators and defectors diffuse at different rates. When the isolated system is in a defector-dominated coexistence regime, faster dispersal of defectors than cooperators leads to a symmetry-breaking transition that produces localized clusters of cooperators. In heterogeneous networks, nodes with higher connectivity become significantly more likely to exhibit cooperative dominance. A degree-based mean-field reduction supports this result by showing that network connectivity controls an effective coupling strength proportional to node degree, thereby producing a bifurcation that separates defector-dominated and cooperative states. We also address why not all hubs become cooperative by means of a multistability analysis. These results reveal how asymmetric mobility and heterogeneous connectivity jointly promote cooperation in structured populations.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{roy2026diffusioninduced,
title = {{Diffusion-induced instabilities promote cooperation in eco-evolutionary networks}},
author = {Sourav Roy and Md Sayeed Anwar and Timoteo Carletti and Matjaz Perc and Dibakar Ghosh},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.15989},
eprint = {2607.15989},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.15989},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Diffusion-induced instabilities promote cooperation in eco-evolutionary networks
AU - Sourav Roy
AU - Md Sayeed Anwar
AU - Timoteo Carletti
AU - Matjaz Perc
AU - Dibakar Ghosh
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/17
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.15989
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.15989
AB - Understanding how cooperation persists despite the advantage of selfish behavior remains a central challenge in evolutionary dynamics. Classical models of public goods dilemmas predict dominance of defectors, yet natural and social systems often sustain cooperation. We study an eco-evolutionary public goods game on complex networks where cooperators and defectors diffuse at different rates. When the isolated system is in a defector-dominated coexistence regime, faster dispersal of defectors than cooperators leads to a symmetry-breaking transition that produces localized clusters of cooperators. In heterogeneous networks, nodes with higher connectivity become significantly more likely to exhibit cooperative dominance. A degree-based mean-field reduction supports this result by showing that network connectivity controls an effective coupling strength proportional to node degree, thereby producing a bifurcation that separates defector-dominated and cooperative states. We also address why not all hubs become cooperative by means of a multistability analysis. These results reveal how asymmetric mobility and heterogeneous connectivity jointly promote cooperation in structured populations.
ER -