| Abstract | The possibility of evolutionary emergence of cooperators and defectors via evolutionary branching of a cooperative strategy has recently been demonstrated in the continuous snowdrift game. However, the required conditions on the cost and benefit functions are rather restrictive. In this work I show that in a metapopulation model with small local populations such evolutionary branching is essentially more common: it can occur also with linear cost and benefit functions. The observed effect of various parameters on the numerical value of the monomorphic singular strategy is intuitive. Their effect on the final coexisting cooperator-defector pair is more complex: changes expected to increase cooperation decrease the strategy value of the cooperator. However, at the same time the relative population size of the cooperator increases such that the average strategy does increase. |
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