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Behavioral Ecology Vol. 12 No. 3: 313-317
© 2001 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

The importance of phenotypic defectors in stabilizing reciprocal altruism

Thomas N. Sherratta and Gilbert Robertsb

a Department of Biological Sciences, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK b Evolution and Behaviour Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

Address correspondence to T.N. Sherratt. E-mail: t.n.sherratt{at}durham.ac.uk

At any one time, a population is likely to contain individuals that are either permanently incapable of cooperating or temporarily lack the time, energy, or resources to allow them to act altruistically. These individuals have been called "phenotypic defectors." We show that, rather than prevent cooperation from emerging, these individuals are extremely important to the stability of reciprocal altruism because they prevent the drift toward increasing naivete that is generally associated with highly cooperative environments. By exploring a combination of simulation and analytical models, we demonstrate that both permanent and transient phenotypic defectors readily prevent the intermittent collapses of cooperation that have characterized the majority of evolutionary simulations. The incorporation of this natural class of individuals not only suggests that the widespread "bang-bang" dynamics are a modeling artifact, but also highlights the need to reconsider the types of cooperative strategy that we should expect to see in the natural world.

Key words: cooperation, phenotypic defectors, Prisoner's Dilemma, reciprocal altruism.


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