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How evolution has resolved this obstacle has been among the most intensely studied questions in evolutionary theory in recent decades. Here, we show that having a choice between different public resources provides a simple mechanism for cooperation to flourish. Such a mechanism can be at work in many biological or social contexts where individuals can form different groups or join different institutions to perform a collective action task, or when they can choose between collective actions with different profitability. As a simple evolutionary model suggests, defectors tend to join the highest quality resource in such a context. This allows cooperators to survive and out-compete defectors by sheltering in a lower quality resource. Cooperation is maximized, however, when the qualities of the two highest quality resources are similar, and thus, they are almost interchangeable.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1008703","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,8]],"date-time":"2021-02-08T21:12:41Z","timestamp":1612818761000},"page":"e1008703","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["Freedom to choose between public resources promotes cooperation"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5354-9839","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Mohammad","family":"Salahshour","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,8]]},"reference":[{"issue":"6870","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"424","DOI":"10.1038\/415424a","article-title":"Reputation helps solve the \u2018tragedy of the commons\u2019","volume":"415","author":"M Milinski","year":"2002","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"7016","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"499","DOI":"10.1038\/nature02978","article-title":"Indirect reciprocity can stabilize cooperation without the second-order free rider problem","volume":"432","author":"K Panchanathan","year":"2004","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"15","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"158104","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.108.158104","article-title":"Emergence of fairness in repeated group interactions","volume":"108","author":"S Van Segbroeck","year":"2012","journal-title":"Physical review letters"},{"issue":"11","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e1003945","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1003945","article-title":"Evolution of all-or-none strategies in repeated public goods dilemmas","volume":"10","author":"FL Pinheiro","year":"2014","journal-title":"PLoS Comput Biol"},{"issue":"7092","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"502","DOI":"10.1038\/nature04605","article-title":"A simple rule for the evolution of cooperation on graphs and social networks","volume":"441","author":"H Ohtsuki","year":"2006","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"7201","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"213","DOI":"10.1038\/nature06940","article-title":"Social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in public goods games","volume":"454","author":"FC Santos","year":"2008","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"11","key":"pcbi.1008703.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"118101","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.89.118101","article-title":"Phase transitions and volunteering in spatial public goods games","volume":"89","author":"G. 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