Cooperation and competition in a social structure: An agent- based model of fishing system

Abstract

Fishers strategize on a day-to-day basis in pursuit of their livelihood. There are many factors they consider in fishing but their ultimate goal is to choose a
good fishing site. Fishers, in the hope of locating good sites, try to access information from the high gainer fishers. Fishers may cooperate (share reliable information) or defect and a corresponding payoff results for their action. We analyze how cooperation/competition evolves as we vary the net income threshold of fishers to search for a new fishing site Ïs and the net income threshold of fishers to punish defectors Ï_p. The final state of the system at low income threshold for the case Ïs equals Ï_p is a global cooperation of fishers in contrast to the global competition (defect) for the case of high income threshold. We found a transition region where polarity (segregation) of cooperators and defectors formed. On the other hand, low Ï_p always result to cooperation regardless of the value of Ï_s.