{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,4]],"date-time":"2026-01-04T02:48:48Z","timestamp":1767494928078,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,9]],"date-time":"2025-01-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1736380800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Games"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Living organisms expend energy to sustain survival, a process which is reliant on consuming resources\u2014termed here as the \u201ccost of survival\u201d. In the Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma (PD), a classic model of social interaction, individual payoffs depend on choices to either provide benefits to others at a personal cost (cooperate) or exploit others to maximize personal gain (defect). We demonstrate that in an iterated Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma (IPD), a simple \u201cAlways Cooperate\u201d (ALLC) strategy evolves and remains evolutionarily stable when the cost of survival is sufficiently high, meaning exploited cooperators have a low probability of survival. We derive a rule for the evolutionary stability of cooperation, x\/z &gt;T\/R, where x represents the duration of mutual cooperation, z the duration of exploitation, T the defector\u2019s free-riding payoff, and R the payoff for mutual cooperation. This finding suggests that higher survival costs can enhance social welfare by selecting for cooperative strategies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/g16010004","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,9]],"date-time":"2025-01-09T07:00:47Z","timestamp":1736406047000},"page":"4","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["High Cost of Survival Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9633-910X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Oleg","family":"Smirnov","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Political Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"1","article-title":"A three-strategy game involving loners in eco-evolutionary dynamics","volume":"2024","author":"Adetowubo","year":"2024","journal-title":"Nonlinear Dynamics"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"249","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jtbi.2004.06.020","article-title":"Know when to walk away: Contingent movement and the evolution of cooperation","volume":"231","author":"Aktipis","year":"2004","journal-title":"Journal of Theoretical Biology"},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Axelrod, R. 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