Decisions and disease: a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2020

In numerous contexts, individuals may decide whether they take actions to mitigate the spread of disease, or not. Mitigating the spread of disease requires an individual to change their routine behaviours to benefit others, resulting in a ‘disease dilemma’ similar to the seminal prisoner’s dilemma. In the classical prisoner’s dilemma, evolutionary game dynamics predict that all individuals evolve to ‘defect.’ We have discovered that when the rate of cooperation within a population is directly linked to the rate of spread of the disease, cooperation evolves under certain conditions. For diseases which do not confer immunity to recovered individuals, if the time scale at which individuals receive accurate information regarding the disease is sufficiently rapid compared to the time scale at which the disease spreads, then cooperation emerges. Moreover, in the limit as mitigation measures become increasingly effective, the disease can be controlled; the number of infections tends to zero. It has been suggested that disease spreading models may also describe social and group dynamics, indicating that this mechanism for the evolution of cooperation may also apply in those contexts.

Författare

Carl-Joar Karlsson

Chalmers, Matematiska vetenskaper, Analys och sannolikhetsteori

Julie Rowlett

Chalmers, Matematiska vetenskaper, Analys och sannolikhetsteori

Scientific Reports

2045-2322 (ISSN) 20452322 (eISSN)

Vol. 10 1 13113

Ämneskategorier

Evolutionsbiologi

Biomedicinsk laboratorievetenskap/teknologi

Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi

DOI

10.1038/s41598-020-69546-2

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2020-09-09