The evolution of cooperation in two-dimensional mobile populations with random and strategic dispersal

We investigate the effect of the environment dimensionality and different dispersal strategies on the evolution of cooperation in a finite structured population of mobile individuals. We consider a population consisting of cooperators and free-riders residing on a two-dimensional lattice with periodic boundaries. Individuals explore the environment according to one of the four dispersal strategies and interact with each other via a public goods game. The population evolves according to a birth-death-birth process with the fitness of the individuals deriving from the game-induced payouts. We found that the outcomes of the strategic dispersal strategies in the two-dimensional setting are identical to the outcomes in the one-dimensional setting. The random dispersal strategy, not surprisingly, resulted in the worst outcome for cooperators.