title: From pairwise to group interactions in games of cyclic dominance.
abstract: We study the rock-paper-scissors game in structured populations, where the invasion rates determine individual payoffs that govern the process of strategy change. The traditional version of the game is recovered if the payoffs for each potential invasion stem from a single pairwise interaction. However, the transformation of invasion rates to payoffs also allows the usage of larger interaction ranges. In addition to the traditional pairwise interaction, we therefore consider simultaneous interactions with all nearest neighbors, as well as with all nearest and next-nearest neighbors, thus effectively going from single pair to group interactions in games of cyclic dominance. We show that differences in the interaction range affect not only the stationary fractions of strategies but also their relations of dominance. The transition from pairwise to group interactions can thus decelerate and even revert the direction of the invasion between the competing strategies. Like in evolutionary social dilemmas, in games of cyclic dominance, too, the indirect multipoint interactions that are due to group interactions hence play a pivotal role. Our results indicate that, in addition to the invasion rates, the interaction range is at least as important for the maintenance of biodiversity among cyclically competing strategies.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P. O. Box 49, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Attila
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Szolnoki
authors.affiliation: Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P. O. Box 49, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Jeromos
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vukov
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Koroška cesta 160, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Matjaž
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Perc
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D005716:Game Theory; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D044367:Phase Transition